Stage 1 construction

In March of 2010, I started in on stage one of the construction -- the game room.  I was hosting our annual March Madness party in my basement.  It's my favorite time of year for sports, and a tradition that my core group of friends and I have been honoring for at least 6 years straight.  My family was leaving to visit an in-law, which meant the boys would have the basement to be as loud and obnoxious as we wanted to be.




Before

 Construction began about three weeks prior to the party.  The first step was to mud the walls.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the walls were some weird sort of textured drywall, as if they were pre-wallpapered.  They snap together in 4' x 8' sections.  I decided to add joint compound to the top half of the walls, sand them smooth, then add the wainscotting below to resemble your typical bar theme.

Applying the joint compound.

In order to get the project done in time, much of the work had to be done with baby in tow.  He loved it.

Almost done mudding.

After a ton of sanding and one helluva mess, I applied the paint.  The color was something I'd picked out for the descending stairway.  Originally I'd planned on a blue, but I really liked this color and thought it looked sharp against the black frames.

Installing the paneling

I ended up choosing the paneling instead of making mitered trim pieces because it was a hell of a lot easier.  I cut 4' x 8' pieces in half, pre-painted them, and glued them to the wall.  Went on quite easy.  I added composite trim to both the top and the bottom of the panels.  Next, I build the drink rail in to the south wall and finished it with quarter round.  One final coat of paint to touch it all up and the project was done just two days before the March Madness party started.

South wall

West wall with surround speakers

Drink Rail

Paneling close up