Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Drywall Installation - Basement

The final post in the drywall installation series will focus on the basement.  The base model of the Florence does not include a finished basement, but for our neighborhood at the time we purchased there was a great incentive discount for the finished basement as long as we use NVR Mortgage, which is Ryan Homes affiliated mortgage company.  From what I have gathered in many blogs there is typically some incentive whether that be discounted finished basement in our case or in other a free finished basement or free granite counter upgrade in order to get you to use their mortgage company.

The basement there is a finished and 2 unfinished sections.  The finished section is at the bottom of the stairs and covers pretty much the full length of the house underneath the living room and family room.  

Finished Basement


The stairs descend down to large open area which houses the finished section of the basement shaped like a backwards "L".  The ceilings are high even where the duct work is run, no ducking required even for tall individuals.  The basement has lights standard as part of the finish option, but they are light fixture and not recessed lighting which would be an upgrade option.  We decided to stick with the standard fixtures, for our finished basement.

Picture of the finished basement with drywall installed
Finished Basement - View from back looking towards front

The front unfinished section can be seen in the right corner of the above picture, closed behind the wall and a door.  The doorway tot he larger unfinished section at the back of the house can be seen in the picture below. On the far wall in the picture you can see two outlets, one will be for the cable and one for an electric outlet.  We decided to place the TV connection there so that a TV could be seen from anywhere in the finished portion of the basement.  In the model they had it on the wall with the door, that you will see would be blocked from the angle in the picture below.

Picture of the finished basement view from front with drywall installed
Finished Basement - View from front looking at back
In the space where I took the picture above we plan to someday setup a pool table which there is plenty of room, as the basement is quite large.

Unfinished Basement


The unfinished section of the basement is divided up in two sections, the first is a small are at the front of the house in the corner under the living room.  This is an area which an optional powder room can be added, we decided against this as it is a little pricey and we are already gaining an extra one and a half bathrooms over our current house.  If you get the powder room, the area under the stairs has an ejection pump installed in a well.  That area is closed off and accessible through a door, in our scenario there is just a closed off wall under the stairs. In the front unfinished section there is access to the sewer line and the water line intake.

Picture of the finished basement showing the unfinished basement front section
Unfinished Basement - Front Section
The morning room addition not only comes with added floor space on the main floor but also a great bit of space added to the unfinished section at the back of the house.  This is the primary storage area for the house unless you upgrade the attic into a finished attic and the added space makes for plenty of room unless you are a collector.  The unfinished section of the basement is wrapped with a fire retardant material to keep any potential fire, as can be seen in both the picture above and below.  The picture below shows the area added with the morning room addition. 

Picture of the finished basement showing the unfinished basement section under the morning room
Unfinished Basement - Under the Morning Room

In the back side of the unfinished basement situated under the kitchen and when applicable the morning room, is where the sump pump, hot water heater and furnace are all situated.  They are in a row across the front area of the section.  Just behind the hot water heater is the source of the Radon pipe we have seen in a number of pictures in past posts, which starts in the ground in the unfinished basement helping vent any radon before it builds up in the basement.  The furnace looks small in size for how big the house is, but the modern devices are much more efficient and do not need an over abundance of space.

Hot Water Heater
Furnace
The sump pump is hooked up, you cant see it but its there in the ground, and the crew has run a power cord down form the kitchen where they have already activated the power to get it supplied with power until the final electric is powered on in the basement.

Sump Pump
In the upcoming posts we will start to look at the different things as they get installed through out the the house.  In the next post the banister, cabinets, and some tile work is on deck.

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