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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

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The Basement Plan & Demolition (Part 2)

January 7, 2011

Basement corner opened! No more walls, no more sink.

We made big strides in basement demo on Day 2. And it feels SO good to have a whole pile of free lumber ready for a good DIY project. All credit goes to Pete for this one – I helped out a little bit by removing plumbing, sorting lumber, and making dinner (so domestic), but the demo was happening in a tight space and he did the heavy lifting and nail removing to get us to this point.

The whole plan of demolishing part of the basement came from the desire to create a new workbench and storage unit for all of the tools that have been living in my dining room. They’ve taken up housing there since the spring when we built the deck, but I won’t be sad to see them go (no tools necessary at dinner parties). Conceived purely to minimize expenses, we decided to remove an unfinished half-bath from the corner of the basement so that we could use the lumber for our new project. And in addition to taking apart the basement for free lumber, I’m really opening the space up for usability.

On Day 1, we did some basic job preparation by removing some electrical outlets and lights you can read about that here, and we started Day 2 by disconnecting plumbing from the sink. We bought a few convenience-related plumbing tools, and the disconnect couldn’t have been easier (or faster!). We turned off the water to the house to be safe, and used a brand new pipe cutter to trim back the two pipes that had lead to the sink. No welding was necessary, because Pete found some great pipe caps that latch right onto the ends of the copper piping (he chose SharkBite, which worked really well for us). No leaks! (And now I have free beautiful copper piping that may make its way into the storage unit or a future project.)

This tube cutter was small investment and made the copper pipe cutting super easy.

First pipe disconnected. Success.

Piping technology. Loved this copper pipe plug - no welding necessary!

We got a serious amount of wood from the walls surrounding the bathroom itself. In addition to a dozen 2×4 boards, we saved some larger 1×10 and 1×12 boards (hmmm shelves?) and a bunch of hefty 2×8’s that were in the floor. And, there just happened to be a great piece of heavy-duty plywood in the house when I bought it that might serve as a nice tabletop.

Hello, people of Earth. It’s Pete chiming in here (as I’m going to do from time to time). We also ended up with a pile of disgusting toilet-water-soaked, rotting, moldy 2×6’s from around the gross toilet that the previous owners mounted right onto this poorly built, raised floor. When you stood on it to “do your business” the entire floor and toilet tilted toward you, AND it feels like your foot was going to plunge through the floor. I had to leave the toilet and the flooring around it in place for now because I was finishing up late at night and it’s a giant mess waiting to happen with one pull of the wrong nail.

Some of the walls coming down - Pete and Cody are standing in the old doorway for me to show how limited the space was "before".

Lots. Of. Free. Lumber. (Those kitchen cabinets will need to be carried up to the attic... they're not being used in this project. I'm saving them so a future homeowner has the option to reinstall in the kitchen.)

Corner of the basement now open! It's not pretty yet, but it'll be nice to have more usable space.

What’s next? Well, I’m still considering removing some extra paneling from the area beneath the stairwell (not shown in any of these photos, but it might make a nice place for open shelving). Other than that, we’re ready to start designing the storage unit!

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Basement

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. I've been a freelancer writer for 10+ years and you can find my work on popular home and garden sites, like HGTV.com. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note.

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  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

    Thanks for visiting!

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