Basement Progress 3

Almost all of the grid is up in the east side of the basement and the two fixtures (recessed light and ceiling fan) have been moved to the center of a panel.

The recessed light has been installed and works fine with a 75 watt flood.

The bracket to support the fan has been installed and the wiring run to the box. Right now that is still a 100 watt light bulb as I try to figure out how to install a hanging fan from a box five inches inside the ceiling panel which can't hold any weight. It's like one of those folk puzzles. I've got a 12" pipe to connect the motor on the down side with the box on the other. The electrical wires run through that pipe from the motor to the box. Sounds simple, right. The problem is the whole thing has to go through the middle of a 2' x 4' ceiling panel. The motor is 8 inches in diameter so I can't slide the panel over the motor after everything is wired and connected. Trying to wire the thing and connect the pipe to the support would be like trying to change the oil in your car while you were locked in the trunk.

Tomorrow's bird walk has been canceled due to conflicting appointments" (plus it's supposed to rain), so come morning I'll slip the full panels into the grid system and then cut and install those that go around the edge.

So far I've been very good with materials. My calculations as to what would be needed for the grid on this side of the basement have been dead on. If things work out this well on the other side, I should have almost nothing left over except for ceiling tiles. I anticipated a need for 8 extra tiles to account for strange cuttings (not errors, just weird corners, dimensions and such) and I ordered an extra box of 10 to be put away for the future.

I learned that the use of furring strips was a complete waste of time and money. I will not put them up on the west side. Every one of the lag screws that was going in hit a floor joist dead center. (They are 16" on center and the 4' dimension of the tile spans three gaps in the floor joists.) I thought there might be more of a chance that they would not hall on the joists. I was wrong.

Once the tiles are up, the afternoon will be spent moving furniture and storage boxes from one side of the basement to the other so I can work. By the end of the day, I hope to have started laying out the positions of the lag screws and drawing the line for the wall border.

(I will also have pictures of the nearly finished east half of the basement. Promise.)