Sunday, October 17, 2010

Basement is Finished

I put some of the finishing touches on the basement this weekend.  The major piece was to assemble the Flor carpeting system.  I chose two different types of tiles for the basement.  At the office area, I chose a series of colors in the "Feelin' Groovy" pattern to harmonize with the colors in the chips in the epoxy floor.  I don't think it came out too bad for a guy is genetically disposed to color-blindness.
The Flor system is pretty simple to assemble.  I did it a little different than they suggest though.  They have you lay out the floor and then lift up corners and use their "stickers" to hold things together by placing them under where you lift up.  It was a bit more cumbersome but I was able to achieve a tighter fit of tiles by assembling the entire rug upside down and adhering stickers on the back.  Some of it comes loose when you flip it over but I still think the results were better.   It was a little trickier with the carpet I chose for the TV area.  There, I used a higher pile and the pile is prone to getting stuck between the two tile's backing, making a small gap.  With a little patience, I was able to get rid of this though.
Of course, the final installation is not how I planned so now I need to order one more tile for it to be finished.  We are keeping the saw-tooth look at the bathroom end but want to square it off at the closet side.
 Another project was organizing the myriad of wires in the basement.  When we had the gigantic entertainment center, this was not an issue as it could all just be stuffed in the back and nothing was seen.  Now we have a smaller TV stand and I used plastic conduit to organize the chords.  I may end up painting it to match the walls.  You can still see it but it is not as annoying as having a sea of worms along the walls and floor.

 The only thing missing is the couch.  We ordered a sectional from Macy's and are waiting until November for its delivery.  You would think they could build us a whole new house by then.  We'd also like to find a way to put some photos up.  Perhaps a picture shelf or some similar device.
This is not a project we chose to take on but we are pretty happy with the results.  We have a little organizing to do in the office area and there is some re-finishing I'd like to do at the soffit at the stairs but otherwise, I consider this project complete.

3 comments:

The Stucco Bungalow said...

Hello - we are in the midst of our own basement reno and flor is a flooring possibility. would love to know more about your experience with the carpet tiles. would you recommend? also LOVE your blue/green color selection!

Chris said...

Thanks. I was initially skeptical about using Flor but I am very happy with the results. They have a showroom here so I was able to see all of the samples and a few installations before ordering. The word is out on how well it holds up but it seems pretty well made. It has no issues of coming up when being vacuumed (my wife's biggest concern). Another note: since I am an architect, I signed up for their design professional program. It gets you a 20% discount and a few other things that will be useful if my clients choose to work with the product. If you are in the industry or know someone who is, I would try and take advantage of it.

john03 said...

After all the flood and problems, I am glad to see our ceiling has held up.
The whole room looks good.