Fall has officially arrived, well at least it has felt like it over the last week or so… had a couple of nights that we(I had to) bring in the plants since it was going to get cold enough we could get spot frost in places and my wife was worried we would lose our tomatoes.  Not to mention my wife had broken her toe  so she was immobile  so I was doing the husbandly and wife-duties… ok, enough complaining.

The patio was used for a movie night, and all of the upgrades we had put in it worked great. I did get more done on the benches, in fact, we pretty much got one of the two done. Build painted and covered. All I basically did was built a box around a box then put a top on it.

While my wife and I were in the fabric store (on a 54% off day) and it was recommended to us to buy poly foam then wrap high-loft-batting around it to round corners off and make the seats not look so square on the cushion. Also another trick which my wife knew was when you are making a seat cushion is to put a type of vinyl or plastic under the actual pattern cloth that you want on top of the padding. This will create a barrier in case you ever spill a liquid on the seat, it won’t soak through and it will be easy to clean. We are still working on the other bench but need to figure out what we are going to do for the back of the bench style part….. we have the ottoman done.   Then over the next weekend when we had a bit of down time I tackled the bench part

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The other part…as promised, was the suspended ceiling. Something that takes some practice to do or at least the general know-how of how to make it work. With ceilings unfortunately there are about 3-4 options, leave it empty and open, suspended ceiling, foam tiles, or Sheetrock. Based on what your application is will help decide which ceiling is right for you. Another thought to consider is  ceiling height, you will lose the most height with suspended ceiling; and the least with Sheetrock. First you need your supplies, for these there are many calculators out there that help you configure how many tiles/ runners/ cross tees you will need to complete your project, I would suggest using these as a good guideline for setting up the room. then it will give you an approx. amount of supplies that you will need to do a ceiling in that room… and you don’t necessarily need to buy everything at once( suspended ceiling ib by far the most expensive of the ceiling options (unless you do copper staple tiles) so buying the grid then waiting for a deal on tile is not a bad idea.

IF YOU DON:T WANT TO SEE HOW TO PUT UP A SUSPENDED CEILING>>>>SKIP THIS :)

Tools: laser level (ideal) or 2’ or 4’ level, string, screws 1 ¼ Philips  and 1 ¾ deck screws

First you will mount the wall  edge runner:

You will also want some of the runner hanging wire that is sold in stores, but don’t feel like you have to buy the special “hanging studs” you can get lags or even use 1.5” torques like I did. First you will want to hang the parameter of the ceiling, decide roughly how high you want the ceiling bottom to be and mark that spot with a pencil on the wall. Next you need to level that line all the way around the room(this is where a laser level is handy) or you can work your way around with a 4 and 2’ level occasionally measuring from either the ceiling or floor to make sure the height hasn’t wavered much. Once you have done that, you can check it by having t people(or nailing) a string across the room and checking that for level… adjusting accordingly. Once that is done go ahead and hang the outer border, using some flat screws(ones that don’t taper on the head preferably) and try to hit studs or at the least ever 16-20 inches around the edge. 

Now that your border is hung, you want to get the runners(big long ones) in place. Decided where you will want them by finding the center of your room and measuring a foot(or two if you are putting 4 x 2 tiles in the long way)  in each direction perpendicular to the joists. Then you will need to put something in the joists/ceiling to hang the wires from.  The more the merrier, but I went ever 32” (distance b/t 2 joists) you will need a row of wire every 4 feet, in line with where you are planning on installing your runners. Measure the distance from a wall to your mark that is 1’ or 2’ off center and then duplicate that line a few times on the joists.

Get your string out, and pull it tight to match up with the few lines you marked across the ceiling. Next you will hang the screws that will hold the wire up, put them at least 2” above the bottom the joist, so you can hangplenty of wire down with room to move. Once that is done, cut your wire into a length long enough to go beyond the “bottom” of your ceiling by at least 3” and then loop the top tight around the screw you just put in( I used a vise-grip and it worked great!) Now for the next part you will need to get your runners out.  Notice that there are many holes in the top, this is where the wires will go through to hang the ceiling up. The distance from the bottom of the runner to the hole is how much above the bottom of the ceiling the wires need to be bent. Run the string at this height along the wires you just hung, now you can go through and bend them all at a 90 deg angle at the height of the string. This creates a uniform height for the ceiling…. Repeat this every 4 feet the width of the room.

Once you have all the wire ready, time to hang grid!!!  Take your runners and figure out how much you need…. But the center of this needs to be the center of the center tile, and the  runners have notches in them every 2 feet for grid-work. That means you have to measure from 1’ or 2’ off center of the room then to your wall. Then from where the one runner stops measure that to the other wall… make sure you do it the same way for every runner otherwise your grid will not be aligned. Once you have your runner ready, take the string down if it is still up and with the help of people bring the first runner up and run the hanger wires through the holes. Then wind it up around the top of the runner a couple of times to keep it from coming loose.  Repeat this for the whole ceiling then get your 4’  tees out. Starting the the center put a 4’ tee in every 2’(if you are doing 4x2 tiles) or 4’( if you are doing 2x2 tiles) then if you are doing 2x2 tiles go back and put 4’ tees in the other direction(perpendicular) to the ones you just put in.  follow that up with the 2’ tees, placing them everywhere there is a 4x2 space to make it 2- 2x2 spaces.

The one thing I never did emphasis is that when you are done with your grid work, the edges should be equal on both sides since you hopefully centered the grid work and that means that as you are placing grid, you will need to trim. Just trim them long enough to set on-top of the l shape bracket so it just “runs” into the side ( the picture helps clarify it.)

Now all you have left to do is get your tiles and place them in, obviously there will be some trimming of the tiles involved unless for some reason you have an exactly even room that is 20x20…

Get your tile up, wire in some lights and ta-da… big upgrade to the look of your basement!

The patio has been our storage room for the last 11 months, and might I say....it was quite nice. Over time though, we were realizing that we could not continue to keep lumber and tools in a room that is nothing but glass and we finally didn't need the storage! Our three orders of business were for cleanliness, climate control, and comfort.

Step 1: Clean: We took the time to seal up everything on the floor. We are not sure how old the patio is or when it was installed, but we do know it settled about 1.5-2 inches total. This isn’t too much, however, it does means that things aren’t as square as it used to be. Caulk and expanding foam filler became our newest best friends. We went around the parameter of the inside with caulk to keep the weather out and the heat in. There was also an expansion joint between the house and the patio, and seeing that it would be a lot of caulk, we first topped it up with expanding foam up to 1” below the surface to keep critters out, then after a little drying time, we hit the top with some expansion joint caulk.

Flooring: Once we cleaned it, we could update the flooring.  After a variety of choices we came to the conclusion that it was tile or wood… vinyl that is. We thought this would be much safer outside tile in our changing climate and much more cost effective than refinished cement.  We haven't heard many people try this option, but are up for the challenge of being guinea pigs.  We took the time to lay it down and lay it well… making sure we weren’t cutting where we were not supposed to and measuring many times.  To keep the flooring down, we put quarter round surrounding the edge of the room. This sure changed the look of the room and created a good flow of style from the rest of the house.

Window: Remember the window we put into the bathroom? It was finally time to finish the other side. We patched up the opening by taking the temporary plywood off and replacing it with a couple pieces of (spendy) cedar siding, some primer and paint.   Only took a few hours to do it and now its like it was never a window…..sorta…  a bit hard to match 40 year old siding to new siding, but it is better than what it was before.

Step 2: Clean/Comfort: Now if you turn your attention to the lower part of the room, we had some wonderful Beaverdale brick circling the wall of the patio.  The brick was brown, dirty, full of spiderwebs and stray caulk/concrete mess and not attractive.  I thought it could easily use some color, so we went to Menards and got 3 shades of red in sample sizes ( 2 bucks a pop) and then added some color to the room. We found how me and my wife are different again with this project. After finishing she said she just painted random and "artsy"; I however counted the bricks per row, divided by three then painted that many +/- 1.  I guess that is engineer random…. and in my mind they look the same (even though mine took a little more touch up.)

Tabletop: For some reason an interesting "table top" like area was created in the wall of our patio.  Luckily we had a small piece of countertop that was the exact size and luckily one of my favorite things to do is framing (or not).  We bought a few pieces of unstained mitered moulding and framed it around the countertop, attached it to plywood, glued it all together, stained the top and created a serving area for the patio.

Table (and benches): We knew we had to have a table that could fit lots of people (my bride loves to have people for dinner). We found one on craigslist and a few chairs to go with it for $40.  Upon purchasing the table and chairs (and a rug), we decided to re-upholster the chairs.  This is actually pretty easy for dining chairs as there is usually a screw that holds the seat on the frame. Once the screw is out-the seat comes out, you remove the staples, measure and cut new fabric, re-staple and re-screw.  (Stay tuned for later post on how we made kitchen cabinets into benches to create more seating!)

Step 3: Climate Control:  We had to do a little rewiring to get a ceiling fan up.  I decided to add and move some outlets for more flexibility in the room and then added a ceiling fan.  The ceiling fan was a request from my bride and a superb idea as it keeps cool on those warm summer and autumn days. We hope to have a small space heater for the cooler days when we feel the need to use the extra space.  We painted the conduit to match the walls, so it's a little harder to notice and blends in well. In our last post we detailed the steps which extended into the patio.   

Curtains: My wife says every window needs to have a curtain.  She came up with this great idea for drop cloth curtains.  Apparently they are pretty easy since drop cloths come in a variety of sizes and already have finished edges.  They can also be dyed any color to match the room.  After sewing a place for the curtain rod, we used spray painted aluminum conduit for the rods and some eye bolts cut into hooks.  We pre-drilled the holes into the aluminum side of the patio, then used a vice to tighten the bolts.  To finish we simply tie the curtains back with ribbon or string when we want them open.

And that's enough for one post: Next time cabinets made into benches and our solution to laundry basket storage.