1920's Style Speakeasy Basement Remodel

On a semi-related note of general "decor" and style, the Mrs. is very happy with how the living room turned out...

Before:
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During:
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The dark color above the switch panel as well as the "L" of white were the first "sample" colors we tried. It looked great during the day but was waaaaay too dark for this space at night. The color around the switches and outlets was the final color we went with (Ben Moore "Calm" for those curious, the trim is Ben Moore "White Opulence").

After:
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The baseboard had a very thick quarter-round moulding that we removed. It instantly made the room look better as the chunkiness went away. I may do a low profile shoe moulding since there are some gaps between the floor and baseboard but I need to decide if I'm going to refinish the floors where the lay or if I'm going to remove and plane each board individually. It's obviously easier to just sand and refinish in place but we have plenty of squeaks and some of the boards move around a bit, so there may be value in removing and inspecting the subfloor panels.

The Mrs. wanted to keep the window frames in their natural wood tone for a while to see how we like it. I like the contrast and it definitely helps "frame" the lake outside the window, but the outer trim is heavy oak of which I am just not a huge fan of for trim or cabinetry. If she wants to keep this look, I may retrim with a cherry or maple to help lighten up the grain some while keeping a similar color palette. We also want to extend the windowsills some as the cats absolutely love sitting on top of them! Admittedly, the trim does tie into the flooring nicely, so maybe I can find a happy medium somewhere...

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While I was doing this, I also replaced the cream-colored outlets. They were older, non-TR style and obviously the wrong color for the walls (or any walls for that matter, yuck!). A few of them were also wired backwards (reversed polarity) and one has a broken ground (even still, so I'll need to check the line).

I need to paint the ceiling, but that's after I finish painting the hallway and kitchen (next weekend). I will install a new ceiling fan in this room as well, but that will have to wait until it cools down some - gonna be in the high 80's and low 90's for the next week, so there's no way I'm crawling around in an attic with sleeves and pants on, working through fiberglass insulation, while sweating like crazy! I need to install another light fixture in the hallway as well. where the kitchen, hallway and living room meet, there isn't a single light and even with all three lights on in each room, there is a huge dark-spot where the rooms come together.
 
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I remember reading about this home in Prescott a couple months ago. The speakeasy itself is a little different but the entrance to it is a really cool idea. Go to picture #18. I also like the idea of the old safe in picture #24.
https://www.azfamily.com/lifestyle/..._51ee3e64-9e0a-11eb-8cbc-17d13d288e07.html#18
I was actually thinking of using a antique safe in my decor downstairs. There are plenty of antique safes available and it be cool to turn something like an old bank safe into "safe" liquor storage - something like this:
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That's a cool hidden entrance for sure. I don't have the space or orientation for anything like that going downstairs, but I was actually thinking about doing something like that in the MBR. These are the photos from the MLS listing, so it doesn't look like this at the moment but you can see the door to the "bonus room" on the right that I am currently using as a home office.
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The door leads to stairs...
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...to a decently sized room with all hardwood, heat, A/C, good lighting and two huge closets (one is a cedar closet).
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I would like to deck this room out as a proper office but also a reading room/library (it's quiet up here!!). I was thinking that since it's attached to our bedroom, it would be fun to keep it "private" when not in use. Could also be a good place to store a gun safe :)

Rather than just a normal door, I was thinking about something like this:
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Alternatively, I was thinking of remodeling the closets for dry off-season storage and using a pair of bookshelf doors there rather than downstairs (I am in and out of the office multiple times per day so the bookshelf door may be impractical there).
 
I was actually thinking of using a antique safe in my decor downstairs. There are plenty of antique safes available and it be cool to turn something like an old bank safe into "safe" liquor storage - something like this:
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That's a cool hidden entrance for sure. I don't have the space or orientation for anything like that going downstairs, but I was actually thinking about doing something like that in the MBR. These are the photos from the MLS listing, so it doesn't look like this at the moment but you can see the door to the "bonus room" on the right that I am currently using as a home office.
View attachment 273032

The door leads to stairs...
View attachment 273033

...to a decently sized room with all hardwood, heat, A/C, good lighting and two huge closets (one is a cedar closet).
View attachment 273034

I would like to deck this room out as a proper office but also a reading room/library (it's quiet up here!!). I was thinking that since it's attached to our bedroom, it would be fun to keep it "private" when not in use. Could also be a good place to store a gun safe :)

Rather than just a normal door, I was thinking about something like this:
View attachment 273035

Alternatively, I was thinking of remodeling the closets for dry off-season storage and using a pair of bookshelf doors there rather than downstairs (I am in and out of the office multiple times per day so the bookshelf door may be impractical there).
Secret doors are cool. Had a friend a long time ago that had a house full of them. I really like what you are doing.
 
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Are you taking everything down to the studs? That's what I did in my basement. It was a few friends, pizza, beer, a sawzall, and a dumpster rental. Starting off with a blank canvas was awesome.
 
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Are you taking everything down to the studs? That's what I did in my basement. It was a few friends, pizza, beer, a sawzall, and a dumpster rental. Starting off with a blank canvas was awesome.
I am - I’ll do some “exploratory” demo work by myself just to see what I’m getting into but once I hit the “go button”, everything will come out and relatively quickly.

I have one issue I’ll need to plan around and maybe have to find a few alternative: my driveway.

My driveway is way steep - to the point where most cars can’t turn into it and even the FedEx truck can barely make it up without dragging bumpers.

We recently had a a delivery truck get stuck trying to pull in and then back out of the driveway:
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Luckily my neighbor had a tractor and chain handy to tug the back of the truck up just enough to get the ass end out of the asphalt and moving again. I’m thinking I may have to use one of those “Bagster” dumpsters. If I can’t get a dumpster rental to drop off at the top of the driveway, I will consolidate everything in the garage and then get a bagster thing scheduled. Worst case is I load it up at the end of the driveway the morning they’re supposed to arrive.

(And yes, we are looking at repairing and realizing the driveway this spring!)
 
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Oh BTW - I checked out your basement thread, super nice work!!

Any "final" pics?
Not yet. I’m actually working on door trim today. I got most of it up, filled and sanded the finishing nail holes, and about to do some trim caulking.

The only door trim I haven’t been able to do is around a pocket door to the home theater. It’s a solid core door for noise reduction. The “outside” of the door was painted white. The theater-side of the door is going to have a dark color, just not sure which yet. I can’t get the trim up until I get the door up, and I can’t get the door up until I paint it. Always a waterfall of steps!

Afterwards, it’ll be time to add baseboard trim. At long last, the carpeting will be installed when the baseboard is finished.

(I hate the shit out of sanding, by the way. It sucks!)
 
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@Jeffreybomb that's funny, I'm working on door trim today too! Not the basement though... the upstairs doors had these awful, straight out of the 70's paper thin, flat-panel, veneered doors with 15 coats of urethane on them that were so loud that when the dog farted, it (literally!!!) woke me up one night.

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Not a single door on the upstairs closed smooth either; everything was either hitting the jamb, not hitting the striker, or both so I didn't even bother hanging new slabs. I went to my local lumber yard and construction center and ordered solid core Reeb doors to replace everything on the first floor. I even replaced the hallway door with a solid core for that nice feel when closing...

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Been a long time since I hung a door, so I had my buddy help me - a good thing too, these things were f%$*@#$ heavy!

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I was trying to save the original oak trim and was able to get the casing on the hallway closet door done (pic below). Unfortunately, the other pieces are being problematic. The PO painted over some tape on 2 of the doors, so they aren't sanding nicely and no solvent I have is helping. Some of the other pieces have split or cracked since the original installer used 10d nails for some reason... Apparently they were prepping the case trim for hurricane winds!

I'm probably going to try to save a few more pieces but it looks like I'll be picking up some pre-primed ranch-profile casing from the local lumber yard so I can get this by the weekend (I still have one more door to hand and then need to fill in the holes, paint the jambs, paint the doors, install the hardware, etc!)...

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Overall we're happy with how it's coming along upstairs. The camera washes out the the white balance in the above pics - the color in real life is a bit of a lavender-grey, which really plays nice with the morning sunshine (warm tones become primary) as well as the evening light (where cool tones become primary).

We are going to have a housewarming party next month to thank all the people who helped during the move and to introduce the kiddos to those people who haven't met them yet. I can't want the upstairs put back together - I'm tired of all my tools and painting supplies being around!

The one good thing about ripping out the old doors, aside from getting them level and properly square, is that I have a lot of 5" x 1" oak boards from the old jamb material. I've been buying some new woodworking shop equipment lately. I haven't done much since our first house many moons ago and have been wanting to get back into some projects for a while now. I figured I'll get some practice on some small bits and pieces around the house and then want to build the bar, cabinets and furniture for the basement. First up will be to put that oak to good use and build some 5" thick tool cabinets with glass panel doors (for my router bits, planes, brass blocks, etc).
 
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July 2022 Update: had to do a few other upgrades to the house before tearing into the basement...

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In Oct 2021, we ripped out the 22 year old furnace (pictured above) and replaced with a shiny new 150,000 BTU unit with new circulator pump and everything. The garage stays a comfy 58-62ºF in winter. The house gets and stays warm fast and we used 1/2 the oil in 2x the time after the furnace was replaced, so the Mrs. is happy there...

Also had a lot of fun with the wye and drain leading to the septic tank. We were constantly getting clogs, which is not fun dealing with on the best of days, and potentially catastrophic if I am on a work trip and the Mrs. has a house full of kids and nowhere to use the restroom or take a shower. In the photo below, you can see the remnant of the old pipe (the small nub with the cap on it). Basically the pipe came out of the house, did 4ft-long "Z" into the septic tank. The septic tank currently in place is a newer replacement. My suspicion is that when the old tank was replaced, the owner didn't want to pull apart the porch or walkway to remove/replace the old piping, which led to the "Z" arrangement. Unfortunately, either when the tank settled or simply due to the length and location, the slope was actually negative leading to the tank at the very last section, leading to water and solids settling at the bottom of the pipe run.



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The previous owner also replaced the toilets with "low volume" units when the bathrooms were remodeled - a completely idiotic thing for anything with a septic. Due to the slope/solids issue, as well as the low ~1.1 gal per flush, things constantly backed up. Rather than monkey with it more jerry-rigged solutions, I hired an excavator to dig up the piping and I got to work. You can see the long, straight shot of 4" PVC pipe that now leads directly to the tank (ignore the piece on the left side of the photo, that was just a spare piece of pipe we had around).

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The process required punching a new hole in the wall (a mechanic's air chisel works great BTW!) and the addition of a new, long-sweep wye with cleanout, plus some temporary connection piping. I had to leave the old cleanout in the wall for the short-term, but that will be coming out shortly, as will the remaining 3" copper drain piping.

The only thing that remains now is for the local electrician to come out and replace the original 60-Amp service line and meter with a modern 200-Amp unit, get the grounding up to code, and run the 100-Amp subpanel to the garage (actually scheduled for this week). The drain line replace required me to pull off about 75% of the ceiling covering. I am scheduled to get a 10 cubic-yard dumper in ~2 weeks, so the rest of the ceiling, wood paneling, insulation, etc. is coming out soon.

Luckily, I had already tested the ceiling material, the flooring, the mastic, etc. for asbestos. The only thing that came back hot for ACM was the floor tile itself. Thankfully, this is a simple fix and will be part of my remodel. I can order some supplies and get some of the boring stuff out of the way soon (like installing the radon abatement system, installing new basement windows, etc). My hope is to get one of the local companies that installs basement/Bilco-style doors out by the end of this month to determine where we can install a Bilco door and then get that scheduled.

My daughter is really excited about the new basement and has already started helping pick out some fixtures and I've let her draft up some designs and pick out some furniture options/ideas. We should have the basement completely gutted by Sept 1st, which is good since that's when the kids go back to school. Fingers crossed that I can get the Bilco door installed, old oil tanks removed, new oil tanks moved into their new spot, and get the framing materials delivered and brought downstairs before fall sets in.
 
Finally starting to make progress on the remodel...

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Had a 20 cu yd dumpster dropped off and planned for the whole house to help me get the basement cleaned out. The kids were excited to help and I even promised a trip to our local favorite diner. Well, come Saturday 8AM, no one was nearly as excited as they were at 5PM the day before, so it ended up being a one-man operation.

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A bit counterintuitive, but the first thing I did was clean up the basement some before tearing into it further. The cats have enjoying clawing all the previously tore down ceiling tiles it to pieces. A quick sweep and pick-up of the smaller pieces let me have "working" areas with easier to manage piles. I sorted pieces by their size in order to better facilitate getting them out of the basement.

Thankfully, the basement still has an old coal shoot doorway that led straight to the garage, which was 10' away from the dumpster. You can see the square door in the wall in one of the photos below. This saved me a lot of time and stair climbing, to which my knees and back were appreciative of. I piled small pieces in buckets and large pieces into my ice fishing sled just outside the coal door, then dragged it through the garage and into the dumpster. As Jim Halpert put it, "porque es muy rapido!". After that, I pulled down the rest of the ceiling cardboard and bagged up the insulation (it was moldy and had some mice droppings, so I "rolled" it down and put it directly into garbage bags).

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Once again I paused for a moment and did a "clean sweep" - allowing me to think about how to best manage the next step, which was pulling all the studs from the walls. The process went surprisingly easily, as a 2-3 smooth whacks with my 3 lb. mini sledge did the trick. A few studs had outlets installed, dropped from the ceiling lighting, so I waited to do those until the very end.

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With the studs off the walls (most of them at least, I did have to leave a small section to temporarily support the coal door), a lot of the peeling stucco came off, either by gravity itself or with a gentle persuasion from a small scraper (the bright square at the top of the image above is the coal door leading to the garage).

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When I finally got it all cleaned out, I realized again how big this space actually is - it's 31' long by 25' wide. When subtracting the stairs and not counting the laundry or mechanical rooms, it's 700 sq ft of usable space (that's as big as our first apartment!).

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With my 2-day dumpster rental over, I did some final cleaning and disinfecting (I was using a mold/mildew biocide during the entire demo as I wanted to keep dust down and also address any potential biological sources). The basement smells 1000x times better already and I only found 1-2 areas where I think we may need to address some moisture issues. The first is by the fireplace, where I think water is coming down the vent itself or sneaking by some flashing and working its way down the brick. The second area is by the front entrance to the house, where I think there were clogged gutters at one time. The windows have some efflorescence on them as well, but I think that's partially due to poor sealing and possibly pooling around the lip. I have new windows planned anyways, so not too worried there.

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Next up is to pull the nails from the ceiling (that held up the cardboard) and redo the lighting. All the lights are pull-switch style flush mount lights. Not only do they hang low (the glass covers are barely above my head), pull switch lights suck donkey d*%$. I'm going to replace them with 6" recessed can lights (going with the art deco/industrial theme), fitted with LED Edison bulbs, and a dimmer. This will be the "primary" lighting down here, for example when cleaning, during game nights, etc. I'm going to have plenty of accent lights as well, so while I'm running wire, I'll prewire a few things into j-boxes and have them ready.

I think we've decided to keep the fireplace as a working, wood-burning fireplace, so I need to have a chimney guy come out and inspect and possibly add a liner (since the exterior of the chimney is technically "indoors" when the PO built the sunroom). I'm also going to need to replace the doors and convection vents, as they're near rusted all the way through and falling apart.

Lots to do and lots to think about for any major next steps, but I have plenty to keep me busy for now...
 
Keep the pics coming

Will do! Forgot to post these too...
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The old 60A service line and meter box simply wasn't cutting it...

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New service line with properly sized wires, true 200A service (oddly the basement was already rewired with a 200A box, which saved me some $$), and a Genrac transfer switch installed (the 22kW generator is on order, expected install in Oct).

Now the lights don't dim when the A/C kicks on and I have a lot of options for adding circuits where needed. I also had them run a 100A service panel into the garage, which I'll use to replace the outlets that are in there (which are piggybacked onto the circuits in the nearby bedrooms, none of which are GFCI) as well as give me two 220v options (a 30A for my table saw and a 50A for my welder).
 
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After wrapping up the new doors and trim work on the upstairs, I started making some progress on the basement again...

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All the remaining trim/backer boards have been removed and the basement now has eight 7" recessed lights (that I painted satin black) for general lighting. The previous lights were on shared circuits (3 separate breakers!) and there weren't any switches (all had pull switches, most of which were broken). The new lights are on their own dedicated 15-Amp breaker.

I found three of these on "open box" deals on Amazon...
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I am planning on installing these on the brick pillars for accent lighting, filled with 25W Edison-style bulbs. These fixtures were apparently very typical in actual Speakeasy's, many of which had red glass covers that acted as warning lights during raids.

Once the lighting is wrapped up, I'll scrape the rest of the loose stucco, fix what I can, then redo the waterproofing. After that, I'll add the brick facade...

I'm taking a lot of inspiration from The Library, one of the few Speakeasy's that survived the San Francisco fires (and also one of the best places to get an Old Fashion in SF). I'm thinking I'm going to build some built-in bookshelves and cabinets, so I may need to make some decisions there before going with the brick install...

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Following along...

Makes me want to do something similar to our unfinished basement
 
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LOVE the tin ceiling! I put one in our kitchen.

We do too - and we are really considering it... I even mounted the recessed lights in a way to make it easy to work around them. That may be the cherry on top when we are done down there...
 
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