By the end of part 2 of the basement reno, we had taken down the old ceiling, the wall panelling, and moved a wall to make more space in the future movie area.

After cleaning up the space from the demolition weekend, my wife and I decided to move forward with upgrading the basement lighting.

Up until now, the entire space had been lit up with the original three ceiling lights. It was good enough for the demolition work, but for the rest of the renovation, proper lighting was required, especially if we wanted to work later in the day. It was still Summer, but once Autumn came, daylight would become a precious commodity.

Below, you can see the comparison between the original lighting and the new setup.

And here is the old bar / future movie area.

Ah... Much better.

But no time to sit around, lots of work still needs doing! At least now we could see while we worked.

Next was the smaller (by comparison) job of removing the carpet from the stairs. While it didn’t take too long to do, it was tedious as the original carpet was stapled to the stairs. Some staples came up with the carpet itself, and some remained in the wood, which meant we had to meticulously scan each step and pull them out one by one. It would hurt to step on them, especially with bare feet!

With the stairwell carpet removed, the demolition portion of the basement was officially complete. From here on out, it would be rebuilding.

Now to deal with the walls.

Earlier in this renovation project, we had to take the workshop section out due to a possible leak (turned out to be fine), which left the stairwell landing’s walls open and bare. The same occurred in a few spots on the other walls while we were taking the panelling off. For example, when we moved the wall in the movie area, it left a large gap in the drywall. Same thing when we removed the closet under the stairs.

So what did we do next? You guessed it! We built framing and filled it with insulation!

Luckily, the wood that came from the demolition was still in good condition, so we were able to reuse it in the wall framing.

With the insulation in place, we attached the vapour barriers and finally closed the wall gaps with some particle board and drywall that we were mostly able to reuse.

And with that, the whole space was ready for mudding the walls!

Despite obviously being a work-in-progress project zone, these wall patches paired with the new lights made for a much more welcoming space.

The vision was coming together, and my wife and I couldn’t be more excited! We had made tremendous progress, but still had a lot to do, and we had the self-imposed deadline of Christmas as we were hoping to use the basement as additional space during our holiday parties.

No pressure…

Thank you for reading, and keep an eye out for part 4, it’ll be a big change.