Insulate Band Board / Rim Joist To Block Air Infiltration into a Basement

If your looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of your home, you might turn to the area of your unfinished basement ceiling where the joists meet the sill plate (at the top of the wall) and the rim joist (or band board) at the edge of the house. It’s in this area that most of the air infiltration into a basement takes place, and an area where you can make a significant improvement... 

Before & After: Basement Refresh by Andy from Odenton, MD

This week’s Before and After is brought to you by Andy.  Andy rents a room in a townhome in Odenton, MD.  He helped the owner (Chris, a writer over at Green Gardenista) remodel the basement.  The transformation is pretty incredible… Andy’s the kind of roommate you want to have! As a result of Andy’s submission, One Project Closer will make a $25 donation to Habitat for Humanity... 

SunnyDry Concrete and Masonry Foundation Waterproofer Sealer Review

About one year ago we applied Wall Firma’s SunnyDry Foundation Waterproofer to seal more than 500 sq ft. of mostly below-grade cement block in our basement.  Our goal in applying SunnyDry’s Sealer was two-fold: (1) to eliminate a small amount of water seeping through the block and pooling near the base of the exterior walls, and (2) to eliminate dampness on the block and reduce overall... 

Industrial Basement Ceiling Look using an Airless Paint Sprayer

Have you ever wanted to create a basement that has an industrial ceiling look (the one that has become popular in many commercial businesses, especially restaurants?).  Instead of installing a drop ceiling or a drywall ceiling in the basement, you might consider using an airless paint sprayer to paint the joists, ductwork, and beams.  You could try to do the job with brushes and paint rollers,... 

Painted Basement Ceiling (How-To, Tips, and Lessons Learned)

This guest post comes from a co-worker and friend, Chuck.  This post is the detailed follow-up from Sunday’s Before and After featuring Chuck’s basement ceiling. With no further introduction, here’s Chuck’s post: In an effort to upgrade my unfinished basement, I wanted an alternative to acoustic tile or a drywall ceiling.  Fred told me of his tentative plans to paint his open... 

Before and After: Painted Basement Ceiling Joists

This week’s Before and After is brought to you from my coworker and friend, Chuck.  You may remember Chuck from the emergency water heater replacement we performed at my house a few weeks ago.  Chuck recently painted his basement ceiling beams with my Wagner airless paint sprayer.  He was going for an open, slightly industrial look.  Painting the beams is a much easier alternative to... 

Self Leveling Underlayments – Achieving Level

Our basement radiant heated flooring install required us to pour a self-leveling underlayment (aka self-leveling mortar or self-leveling cement) over the ThermoTile radiant heating wire to achieve a level surface for tiling. I’ll say up front, our results were not perfect, but I don’t think it is the fault of the product. Read further for details. Our Choice: LevelQuik ES We chose Custom’s... 

Basement Project Progress

I finally had a breakthrough on the basement project. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing a video here next week. The next step in the project requires that I pour an extended setting self-leveling mortar over the radiant heating elements glued to the slab. I’ve been unable to find a retailer who was willing to sell me the only suitable product I could find for the job: Custom Building Product’s... 

Why the basement project first?

The basement project is an important one in our house, because once its finished, we can proceed with a series of “room moves” that we think will really accommodate our lifestyle better. Essentially, when the basement is done, we’ll move our TV off the first floor to the basement. (The TV is currently in the “formal living room”, which isn’t really formal at all).... 

Basement Ceiling Lighting

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