My first big 'remodel' project progress report

[Jamisjockey]

I'm elbow deep in a remodel of my basement.  Well, it was 30% finished, so I'm actually adding new construction to the unfinshed part.  
Lessons learned?
Measure thrice, cut once.
Plum and level thrice, fasten once.
Tacking things in place is a stellar idea in case you screw up.
OSB creates alot of dust when hacked on with a saw.

I'm about 90% with the framing.  Some sofits remain, I need to produce a doorway into the west room (through a load bearing wall), and I need to frame the laundry room (SW corner).  
So far I've done it all myself.  The electrical will be with the help of an electrician at a discounted rate with my sweat labor.  The HVAC will be a contractor.  I'll be doing the insulation, and will insulate the interior walls as well as the ceiling to help reduce noise throughout the house.  Drywall and tape/mud....yea I ain't doin' that *expletive deleted*it.

Ready for some pics?

Here's the basic plan.  I modified the location of the door to the room on the right, and changed the closet to a small walk in.  This produced an odd shaped room, 19'x8'9".....with a 4'10"x6' closet.  This makes a really odd shape, but it is a 5th bedroom or bonus room, however you want to look at it.  It'll be a spare bedroom for us, and probably a workout room.  Its large enough it could be a bunkroom for big parties or visitors with kids.  I envision a teenager having thier bed at one end, and thier study area or video equipment at the other.
I changed the location of the door into the closet on the room to the left due to some sofit clearance issues.  Closet interior is 4' wide, 13'10" long.  The other room is 18'x13'10".  Its going to serve us as an office for the wife's business, and another spare bedroom.  The location of the daylight windows, and the ridiculous location of the HVAC and Water heater dictated alot of how the floor was designed.
Here's some framing shots:

OSB sofiting, and the wall dividing the furnace and closet from the bedroom.

West end of the odd shaped room.  The closet entrance and the location for the room entrance will be to the left.

Closet in that room.

East side room.

Huge walk in closet, and another view of the odd shape room.

I'm taking suggestions on ways to provide decent sound-dampening between the rooms, and between floors.  
Fun fun fun.

[cfabe]

Best way to provide sound damping between adjacent rooms is to not have them share a common wall. Build two 2x4 walls on a 2x6 plate, with the studs staggered so there's no physical connection, then insulate with fiberglass or a heavier acoustic insulation. You're past this point though.

Depending on your intentions there are a number of other methods you can use. There are vibration isolation clips to use to hang the drywall (aka resilient channel, iirc) there's a goopy glue thing you can use to vibration damp two layers of drywall (aka green glue I think).

If you want to get really serious the guy's in the home theater builder section at avsforum.com have lots of really over-engineered and expensive soundproofing methods, and some easier cheaper methods as well.

What are you using for your bottom plate on the walls? Pressure treated lumber of some sort? Looks kind of reddish, I've not seen that before. I'd also suggest doing the walls with the green moiture resistant drywall instead of standard drywall. Not a huge cost difference and being a basement, there's always the potential of it getting wet.

Looks good so far. I'm about 95% done on a similar project, but my new room is a home theater. I'll throw up some pics tomorrow if I get a chance.

Keep up the good work, don't let it drag on for 11 months like mine

[Jamisjockey]

It is pressure treated, which is code around here.  
Not sure I want to go that far, I'll probably just insulate between the rooms.  Thanks though.

[El Tejon]

As to sound insulation, I chose that blue slab stuff.  It has a high R factor and provides great sound insulation between my basement and my attached garage.

[Jamisjockey]

Hmmm....I might just throw some R-13 between the walls and call it good.

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, I just put R-13 in all my interior walls.  My panelling is 5/8" roughtex.  Pretty good sound-deadening.

, Art

[kudu]

Another choice for sound insulation is called 'rock wool' insulation.  It is similar to fiberglass, but has a denser quality to it.  Not sure what the price difference is between the two, but I see it installed in many factory areas that want to separate factory noise out of the offices.

[Jamisjockey]

Thanks for the ideas and advice.  I think I'm going to stick to insulating the interior walls and ceiling, which should reduce sound transfer throughout the house.  

I got the doorway cut through the load bearing wall.  2x6 sandwhich header, double jack studs on each side.  Screwed up the false wall a few times and ended up wasting 6 2x4's and an hour and a half,  but got it done in the end.

[Jamisjockey]

Entryway through the load bearing wall.  Some framing done in the laundry room but I have some sofits to create in there to pull that together.