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New House, New Basement Workshop Build

3K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Eric_S 
#1 ·
New House, New Basement Workshop Build

This past July we moved from Indianapolis to Noblesville, IN. I had to have the shop packed up since last March so it's been a while since I've been able to do any woodworking, but things are changing.

One of the requirements for the new house was that I'd get a dedicated area for a proper workshop with heating/cooling and central dust collection, and my wife wanted a dedicated garage to park in lol. We both agreed and settled on a gorgeous house with a large, finished basement.

Here is a pic of the basement before we moved in, from the original listing pics, the area in foreground will become the shop.



Let the demo begin.
First, tear up the carpet where the shop was going to be. I'll be putting down a 4mm thick click vinyl floor eventually.



Next, I had 3 air registers in the ceiling that were all going to end up on the workshop side, and none in the rest of the basement, so I had to move one to the other side of the soon to be new wall. The utility room gas combustion vents were also going to end up on the workshop side. I didn't want any potential fire hazards so I closed those off and moved them to the finished side as well.



I also had to knock down the bathroom door framing because it was at a weird angle to get around the support beams and would go into the workshop. As nice as that was for me, we didn't want people to have to go through the workshop to get to the bathroom. So the bathroom entrance would be reframed to enter from the finished side.



Here are a couple pics from the framing and drywall. I thought I had more of these but can't find them.




And one from the other side of room. That back area is going to be a dust collector and air compressor closet. Also in the pic you'll notice two doors. The one closest to camera is an exterior door. Because the workshop was inside, and next to a finished area, vents, etc, it was important to keep as much noise and dust inside the shop as possible. I'm sure some will get out, but this will help. Also, I'm going to put a deadbolt on their to keep children out.


I don't have any pics of the mudding, but that part sucked!!! I hated every second of it, and after calculating how much time it took me to do versus how long a pro would take, I should have hired it out. Lesson learned. Leave mudding to the pros. It looks good though so I'm happy with my mudding skills after watching numerous youtube videos, but still, should have hired that portion out.

I was starting to get impatient at this point and wanted to just move stuff in, so rather than priming/painting with a roller I decided to rent a professional sprayer from HD. It made sense since the room was completely sealed off and I wanted everything(including the ceiling) a bright semi-gloss white. All I had to do was tape off the air registers. Here it is, right after finishing priming and painting, overspray and all. Glad I had a good face mask because that spray got everywhere and the fumes were pretty strong otherwise.



Finally, walls are up and painted :)

At this point I decided to get as much ceiling work done as possible to minimize damage to the new flooring I was putting it. I started by installing a JET 1000 CFM Air Filter to help minimize dust floating around. Since the shop was in the basement, the one condition my wife had was to do everything possible to prevent the whole house from getting covered in dust.
Also, I had no help installing this so I used some long chains and hooks and slowly worked each side back and forth 6" at a time until I could remove the chains altogether.





I also installed my central dust collection drops at this time. 6" 26 gauge duct for the main line I got from a local HVAC supplier, Lee Supply, and HVAC mastic to seal the joints and elbows.



I got a JET-DC1200 dust collector. The cheaper 30 micron bag model. I then bought an aftermarket 1 micron Wynn filter.



The dust closet has an air vent half way down on the closet side and the opening on the workshop side is high up. I'm hoping the offset dust collector air return will cut down a little on noise to the shop.

Also you'll see all the electrical outlets. I had pro's install a 100amp subpanel for the shop and then I installed 2-20amp circuits for the wall, 1-20amp for the air filter, and 2×20amp 220v for dust collector and table saw.

Finally, I can install the flooring…. I used 4mm Sycamore Click Resilient Vinyl.




And now time to start bringing my tools downstairs piece by piece. What a PITA.




I still have a few more tools to bring down but I haven't had a chance to get to them yet.

Pic of half the shop cleaned up, still need to finish up the dust collection to the tools.


My old workbench was a very crude one I made before I really got into woodworking. I decided a proper shop needed a proper workbench, but I didn't want to spend a ton on the wood for it. So I'm going to be making a Split Top Roubo workbench out of Southern Yellow Pine.



I'll need to go back for more wood but these 2×10's should be enough for the top and some of the legs. The top will be 4" thick when its finished.

That will be my next blog. Stay tuned.
 
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#5 ·
Thanks everyone. Visualj, around 370sq ft including the dust closet. I'm sure they'd be shocked. What I should really do is tell them they should sue the contractors they hired to finish the basement after all the knowingly illegal issues I've found that could have burned down their house. I saw during the inspection the permits were pulled, but failed due to improper wiring of outlets using 14gauge on 20amp circuit. By the time the inspector came back though I'm guessing the walls were up or it was paid off. They fixed the wiring to 12gauge, but only from the circuit to the first outlet. After that everything is still 14gauge wire on 20amp outlets and circuit. So I switched the circuit to 15 for the in wall outlets. There were also issues with the duct work to the basement I had to fix.
 
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