Improving Your Basement

Western. Pine Assn.

Utilize the basement, such as this, to the fullest. Possibilities are limited only by your own imagination.
Improving Your Basement

The uses you make of it are up to you. But, by utilizing it to the full, you can often double serviceable space of your home

You have a great amount of usable floor space if you have a basement. The typical basement of a one-story house has just as much floor area as the first floor. That's why it's often said that you can double the living space in your house by making full use of your basement.

Basement space is being used by enterprising homeowners in many amazing ways. One bowling enthusiast put an alley down there. A Long Island builder constructed homes with a basement swimming pool. A rifle enthusiast turned his basement into a range. Fallout shelters are appearing in basements more and more. Basements have been used as music rooms, movie theaters, print shops, photo studios. Countless thousands of Americans have converted their space below grade into recreation rooms, hobby areas, laundries, workshops, bedrooms, even separate apartments. So what you do with your basement will be limited only by your own imagination.

Portland Cement Assn.

The simply-improved basement above enjoys popularity far in excess of the investment it represents.

Results of a more extensive undertaking are seen below-—naturally the home's most lived-in room.

Individual "his" and "her" workshops stemmed from this modest but well-planned improvement.

How to waterproof basement walls

Once tests indicate the need for it. mix waterproofing cement with water in amount and to the consistency that the manufacturer recommends.

Waterproofing

The first step in improving your basement should be either to get rid of two hazards if they exist—excessive moisture and termites—or to prevent them. The wet basement has become a butt of cartoonists' jokes. But, except in rare cases, they can be made dry so that you can use the room in perfect comfort.

You can make a simple moisture test to insure that your basement does not have hidden water hazards. Place a piece of cardboard about two feet square on the basement floor with its edges tied down firmly by bricks or other heavy objects. If the cardboard remains dry for several days after a heavy rainfall, you can be fairly sure that you do not have an underground water hazard.

Make the same test on your walls. Tape the cardboard tightly to the foundation, about two feet above floor level. After a heavy storm, remove the board and examine the side that was against the wall. If the cardboard is dry, it has passed the test. But if it is even slightly damp, you probably should take extra precautions to keep water from seeping in.

Waterproofing of basement walls has been simplified by the development of easy-to-apply paints with a cement base. They are sold in powdered form. Following the manufacturers' directions, you merely mix them with water and brush them on.

Most cellar walls are bare, and the cement paint can be applied to them directly. But if the wall has been painted, it may be necessary to scrape the paint off. A water-soluble remover will do the job with wall paint. And muriatic acid, scrubbed on with a brush and rinsed off several times, will do the job for whitewash.

It is not difficult to apply cement-base paint. First wet the walls thoroughly with either a brush or spray. Then apply the waterproofing paint to the walls, working from the bottom up. After the wall has dried thoroughly—in two days or so—add another coat.

Sometimes a more drastic treatment is indicated. For example, intense water pressure may be built up outside and exerted against the foundation. You may reduce some of this pressure by cleaning out roof gutters and downspouts, and by otherwise making sure that all rain that lands on the roof is carried off harmlessly and given no chance to come back into the basement.

If you discover seepage at the joint of the floor and wall, build a cover to prevent further entry of water. If you have a block foundation, first drill small holes near the floor, so that water inside the wall can escape. Using a thick, rich mortar, close up the holes after all water is out. Now make a trench in the floor right next to the wall. The trench should be two or more inches wide and one or more inches deep. Dig it out thoroughly. Then apply rich mortar to a distance about four inches high on the wall and four inches on the floor. The mortar will naturally slope from the wall to the floor. This cove will hold back water that finds its way to the wall.

Most manufacturers suggest that you first wet the walls to avoid drawing all moisture from mix.

Alter first coat, a second one mar be required. The finished, treated wall will look like this.

How to replace an old wood hatchway

First, remove the old wood hatchway. A crowbar usually takes it off concrete base quickly, easily.

Modern steel hatchways, such as this Bilco model, come in knockdown form, are easily assembled.

Position hatchway and mark where it meets house. Mark, predrill holes where it bolts to stairwell.

Cut shingles along marked line. Controlled depth-of-cut of saw prevents damage to studs beneath.

Bolt hatchway to stairwell and caulk to water proof around sides and where it meets the house.

Attach doors and project is complete. The unit's spring-balanced doors will float open at a touch.

When there is a high-water table, water pressure sometimes builds up under the floor, around the edges. To prevent this, you may have to put down tile drains along the edges o£ the floor. It's first necessary to make a trench along the wall and to lay drains so that they will slope about one inch every six feet. The drain tiles should have holes all around their sides to collect any water that comes in. This water will flow down hill through the tile and will be carried out either to a sump pump in the basement or to a dry well, from where it will soak into the ground harmlessly.

If your basement walls get wet in many different places, you may only need to check how the soil around the house is graded. Water always seeks the lowest level. If there is a low spot near the foundation wall, it will naturally collect there, -seep into the ground, and build up pressure. It's a good idea to grade the soil around the foundation so that all water will be carried at least eight feet away from the house.

Eliminating Termites

Getting rid of termites is generally a smaller problem, thanks to modern materials and methods. Probably every homeowner knows that a termite is a tiny insect which feeds upon wood and could, in time, eat away an entire house. Termites have been found as far north as Canada, but they thrive in warm, humid climates. They are a scourge in the South, and are almost equally at home in northern climates.

Termites get into a house from the earth. The first step in preventing their entry is to make sure that no wood—floor beams, foundation sills, wall sheathing—is closer than six or eight inches to the ground. If wood of your house touches dirt, termites that have been feeding on scraps in the earth will come into the house to dine at a new source. Even where no wood was in direct contact with the ground, termites have entered into foundation cracks and climbed up through them.

Fortunately, termites always give signs of their presence. They must always retain contact with the soil. To make their travel simple, they build small white tubes extending from the soil to the lumber upon which they are performing their destructive deeds.

How to panel around pipes

Furring strips are first nailed along sides of the pipes, as demonstrated in this photograph, to provide you with a nailing surface lor new wall.

An early sign of termite penetration, therefore, is these tunnels running up a foundation wall. Another sign can be seen in the spring, when termites shed their white opaque wings. In a termite-infested home, such telltale white wings can be found in abundance on the cellar floor.

Even without tunnels or wings in evidence, you can make a simple test to determine if termites are present. Plunge a screwdriver, knife, or other sharp object into wood which you think may be termite -infested. Ordinary wood would stand up against the pointed object, of course. But if this piece tends to give way, it's evidence that termites have devoured the cellulose and weakened your structure.

It is now easy to get rid of termites. First, dig a foot-wide, two-foot-deep trench around the foundation. Obtain one of the several excellent, commercial anti-termite poisons now on the market—compounds of chlorodene, sodium arsenate, and tenta-chlorophenol. Mix it with water, as directed. Then pour the mixture into the trench all around the house, as well as into the backfill.

These preparations will kill any termites that come up through the soil. But they are also dangerous to children and pets, so keep them away while the mixture is prepared and applied. Chlorodene solution will not harm shubs. After you backfill, you can replace any plants you removed in order to do the job. They will be none the worse for it.

Providing Outside Access

A project some homeowners overlook, but one which can considerably increase the usefulness of their basement and the value of their house, is to add a separate exit. This separate access serves a double purpose—it is useful for both storage and recreation.

It makes it easier to use your basement to store lawn furniture, tools, out-of-season sports equipment, bicycles, sleds, and the like. Without a separate entrance, you'll either have to store these items in your garage or lug them up and down your inside stairs. In fact, it's often impossible to get large pieces of lawn furniture down to the basement from inside the house: The inside halls and inside stairs are just too narrow. You don't have that problem with a separate outside entrance. The typical basement door to the outside is at least 36 inches wide—as wide as your front door.

The other important reason for a separate entrance is that it doubles the value of the recreation, laundry and hobby areas. Youngsters can go in and out without tracking mud or dirt over the rugs on the first floor. A housewife with her washer in the basement can carry her clothes to the drying yard in a direct route. A home hobbyist can bring big pieces of plywood, hardwood and other lumber into his basement workshop—something that usually is impossible without an outside entrance.

It is not difficult to cut a hole for a door in a basement foundation. If you have access to an electric hammer, you can probably cut through a concrete block or cinder block wall in an hour and through solid concrete in no more than twice that.

Only six steps are necessary. First, choose a central point in your basement that will enable you to reach storage areas, laundry, workshop and recreation rooms with a minimum of walking. If you are just beginning to make basement improvements, you'd probably be wise to plan them all on paper—noting where your recreation room, hobby room, dark room, laundry, furnace room, etc., will be. You can then locate your entrance so that you can come from the yard into a "center hall" off which all your basement rooms will open. In that way, you'll make all the rooms of your basement easily accessible.

Plan your stairway so that it will run straight out from the basement—not parallel to the house. Stairs built this way save on both material and labor, and also make it easier to bring bulky items in and out. You can run the stairs directly up from the basement floor. No drain is needed at the bottom, because you can cover the steps with a standard double-leaf Bilco hatchway which will keep out rain and snow.

Carefully excavate on the outside down to the basement floor level. The excavation should be about six feet square. It should expose the foundation wall where you intend to put the door.

You might want to hire a mechanical digger for this job. It can do it within a few hours. You might also hire a man to dig by hand. A trained laborer, working with reasonably light soil—not sand, but not clay—can move about a yard of dirt per hour. An excavation six feet square and eight feet deep constitutes about eleven yards, enough to keep him busy for a day and a half.

On both the inside and outside of the foundation, mark the outline of the door you plan. Generally this will be either 3 feet 4 inches; 3 feet 8 inches; or 4 feet wide. With any of these openings, you can get a stock metal hatchway to cover the stairway.

Measure carefully to point where pipes protrude from wall. A double-check may be worthwhile.

Using a coping saw, cut half circles in the plywood panel that will be installed below the pipes.

Measure and mark the small piece of plywood that will go above pipes. Again, cut the half circles.

When two pieces of plywood are joined together on the wall, thin joint can hardly be noticed.

How to box off basement ducts

Heating ducts, such as these, difficult or impossible to alter, can easily be covered to make ceiling of basement attractive.

Measure carefully and cut plywood to size that will cover the bottom and sides of ducts. Use finishing nails in assembling.

With the electric hammer, cut through the wall at a few points along the lines you have marked. Then go back to the lines and work the hammer all the way through on each side of the proposed doorway. Work from either side of the basement.

When you have clearly cut through the wall on both sides of the proposed doorway, take a sledge hammer and knock the concrete into the excavation outside the house. You will be surprised at how quickly the wall section can be knocked out. If you used a mechanical digger to excavate, it can also be used to remove the broken pieces of wall. This broken concrete can have many uses later. You can use it as a base for terraces, paving and the like.

Now erect the wall for the exterior stairway. For best results, the walls should rest on a footing of solid concrete. It need be no thicker than six inches and no wider than 16 inches. Some of the broken concrete from the wall can be used for the footing. Walls of the stair well can be made of poured concrete, concrete block or cinder block. They should be at least eight inches wide.

You can make the stairs to the grade in two different ways. One is to make them of concrete block. Broken concrete from the foundation wall, mixed with dirt, will serve as a fine base for the steps.

A more economical way is to use prefabricated steel stringers developed for this special purpose. Using masonry nails, you attach the stringers to the cheeks of the stairway. The stringers are made with supporting slots especially designed to hold wood treads two inches thick and ten inches wide. You need only cut the treads to size, place them in the slots, and drive nails through precut holes to provide a secure footing. You can easily remove the treads if necessary—if, for instance, you want to bring in a piano.

The entire stairway should be covered with a hatchway such as the Bilco steel unit. The maker's literature recommends openings, step sizes, and stairway dimensions to accommodate these hatchways and stair stringers and is available from your local building-supply dealer.

All that remains now is to frame the opening for the door. There probably will be jagged edges where you have cut the foundation. Build a door frame of lumber two inches thick and about the same width as the foundation wall. If the foundation is eight inches thick, use 2x8 lumber; if it is 12 inches thick, use 2x12s. Using shims where necessary, nail these frames to the concrete foundation. A carpenter's level will tell you if the framework is completely plumb. With your sides and top of the doorframe securely in place, you can now put mortar in any openings between the frame and the foundation wall. This cement will also help hold the frame securely in place.

You probably will not have to reinforce your sill over the door opening; first floor joists of the sill consist of a continuous piece of lumber. However, you can strengthen them by supporting them on a header which can rest upon the two sides of the doorframe. These in turn rest upon the footing of the foundation.

Edges of the boxes are simply nailed to sides of furring strips. Use of a level is recommended.

The finished boxes, with ceiling tile and molding in place, present particularly smart look.

Building a basement fallout shelter

Hole floor for bond for mortar. Lay first course of 12-in. concrete blocks on rich mortar; level.

Fill all spaces in blocks with rich mortar. This will provide wall that is equal of solid concrete.

Every few courses, cut a block into foundation where walls meet. Tie-in strengthens both walls.

Build to floor joists, fill block, continue to sub-floor. No light should show through the wall.

The entrance to the shelter is narrow, has walls on both sides to block out any radioactive rays.

Commercially-constructed shelter doubles as finished basement room. It sleeps four in bunk beds and stored cots. Table slides away into cupboard.

East Coast Attic and Basement Co.

How to panel basement walls

If plywood. wallboard, or similar big panels are to be installed, first attach furring strips. 16 inches on centers as shown. Strips should be installed horizontally, if random planking is to run vertically.

Carefully measure floor-to-ceiling distance for that each plywood panel and then cut panel to size.

Use a carpenter's level to assure yourself panel is perfectly plumb before nailing to strips.

Holding hammer at the end of the handle may enable you to nail panel top without using ladder.

Use a nail-set, as shown, to sink nails so they can be covered over, completely hidden from view.

Hole for window opening is cut before panel is installed. Measure, mark, double-check before cut.

Panel in place. The edges of each panel should rest exactly on the center of a furring strip.

A storage wall for your basement

Measuring 8 ft 3 in. high. 11 ft. long and 14 in. deep, this clever basement storage wall is of pine paneling, raked and finished with maple stain, lacquer. Motion picture screen conceals loudspeaker, shelves.

Western Pine Assn. photos

Beneath shelves is generous storage space, used for games in this home. Pull-down bed is used for unexpected guests. Masonite or plywood can be used to back frames of doors. Certain suggested construction details are shown at the right.

It is sometimes difficult to get enough light and air into basements. The vertical door can help you get adequate ventilation. Some homeowners install a combination storm and screen door as the main door. In summer they get a steady stream of air.

For a more economical installation, you can make your own door of plywood or simple batten construction. If your stairs are protected by a hatchway, which is burglarproof, you need not use elaborate hardware on this door. An inexpensive latch arrangement probably will suffice.

Concealing Pipes and Ducts

One of the big problems in most basement remodeling projects stems from the pipes, ducts and wiring. There's probably no real reason these unsightly items couldn't have been hidden in the first place, but—it seems—they rarely were.
In remodeling, you have two choices: Either leave the pipes and ducts as they are and build around them, or relocate them so they'll be concealed by your new walls and ceilings.

It's easy to build around the pipes if your ceiling is high enough. Then you can afford to give up four or six inches and to install a second ceiling—one which will hang from your existing joists. This is not as difficult as it sounds.

The best way is to nail 2x4s to the existing joists. Let these 2x4s hang perhaps eight inches below the bottom of the joists. To their sides, nail other 2x4s to serve as the nailing surface to which your finished ceiling material—wallboard, ceiling tile, or what not—can be applied. If you intend to put in ceiling tile, you would have to fur out from the ceiling anyway. It will not be much more difficult to build your hanging ceiling.

Build new stairs—the easy way

Construction of fine new stairs such as these is greatly simplified by the use of relatively new metal forms, made by The Bilco Company of West Haven. Conn.

The forms, called Stair-gides, are laid out on 1x12 pine stringer, as shown at left They are nailed to the stringers through holes that are factory - drilled.

Only ends of stringer need be sawed, using form as guide, left below. The treads, each supported by ledge of form, are nailed to stringer before stairs are raised. Foldout tab below tread adds strength. Risers, when used, are nailed to treads as below.

How to frame around doors

Swinging "cole" doors, such as these, add an attractive touch and warrant consideration for the modem playroom.

The miter box is a standard carpenter's aid. Use exact cuts for the door trim easy.

Trim is customarily put in place with finishing of one makes nails. It covers joint between door frame, wall.

When you conceal pipes and ducts in this way, first make sure that they are in good condition, won't leak, and won't have to be replaced for a considerable period of time. Your new ceiling, or part of it, will have to be taken out to get at them if anything goes wrong. Make sure that the pressure in your water lines is adequate, that there is no rust or corrosion. If condensation forms on cold water pipes, cover them carefully with insulation which will absorb it and prevent it from ruining your new ceiling. Also make sure that the pipes are properly secured to the joists. They sometimes have a tendency to work loose.

In any event, lay out the ceiling so that it has a trap door. If water lines must be shut off, it should be easy for you to get to them. A whole panel of easily-removable ceiling surface might be in order under pipes you may have to get at in the future. It's always a good idea to affix the ceiling tile under water-line valves with screws rather than with staples or nails. If necessary, you can remove them easily to turn off the water, and replace them just as easily.

To be on the safe side, make a carefully scaled drawing showing the exact location of all pipes and ducts. It might be desirable to make a carbon and keep it among your important papers. Reason: Although you may know where every pipe and duct is hidden, future owners may have some trouble in locating them. The drawing will be a great help to them if they ever have to get to the pipes in a hurry.

Sometimes heating ducts run across the joists at one side of a room. It's probably just as well to box them in, rather than to bring the entire ceiling down beneath them for a completely unbroken surface. Boxing in is fairly simple: Hang 2x4s from the existing joists, and nail a 2x4 to the hangers. You will then have nailing surfaces for the two sides of the box.

If the ducts are in the middle of the room and several other pipes or water lines must also be enclosed, you'd probably be better off bringing the entire ceiling down, provided that you c n afford to give up the height.

The alternative suggestion — moving pipes and ducts to locations where they can be more easily hidden—is not difficult in the case of water lines, but becomes too much of a problem with waste disposal pipes of cast iron and of heating lines and warm air ducts. But if your plumbing needs overhauling anyway, now might be the time to do it. When you replace old pipes with new, you can install the new between or through joists so that a normal ceiling surface will hide them.

In replacing or removing lines—supply or disposal—it's first necessary to shut off your inlet. What kind of water supply pipes you should use may be determined by requirements of your community. Some towns call for threaded steel. In other places, copper tubing is a must. Amateurs can get good results with either type.

Of course, you should try to salvage as much of the old pipe as possible. It may be necessary merely to cut it at a few points, add joints, and then cut back to the existing pipes when you are beyond the area that you wish to enclose.

Angle of top trim perfectly matches that of the aide trim—thanks to careful use of the miter box.

Framing completed. As in all finishing work, a double-check of the measurements is advisable.

Utilizing irregular areas

Irregular space, such as alcove In which girl perches, can often easily be put to good use. As evident, perforated tiles dominate the room.

It is possible in many instances to bend copper tubing without using joints. Bends of this flexible type of tubing should not be sharp. If you must make right angle turns, by all means use the rigid type with soldered joints. With this method, you first measure and cut the tubing to give you the length needed plus an inch to allow for the fitting to be applied over the end. An ordinary hacksaw will cut this tubing.

After you cut it, clean it with fine sandpaper or emery board and put solder compound on the edges. This compound, available in a paste form, is as easy to apply as a coat of grease. Next place the fitting on the tube. With a blowtorch, heat the joints. The solder will close up and seal the space between the fitting and the tubing. That's about all there is to it.

The tubing can be hung between the joists by means of metal straps which are available at most well-stocked hardware stores or plumbing-supply houses. If it is necessary to run the tubing across the joists, you can either knock out the bottom of the joist or cut a hole in the center— midway between the top and bottom of the joist.

If you follow the former procedure, make the notch as small and as close to a bearing partition as possible. If you make a big notch in the center of the span, you will weaken the structure of your house. If you must cut into the joist at this point, run a steel plate across the opening, and attach it to opposite sides of the notch. It will provide added strength. An opening about an inch in diameter, made in the center of a joist, will not seriously weaken it.

The usual main drainage system consists of cast-iron pipes, generally 4 inches in diameter. It is the means by which all of the waste from the various plumbing fixtures is carried to the sewer, septic tank or cesspool.

This system operates on the natural law that water always travels downward. You'll note that waste lines always have an appreciable pitch so that the water will follow its natural course out of the house. That pitch, generally about one inch for every four feet, must be maintained if the system is to function properly. So before making any changes in your drainage system, remember the cardinal rule: Maintain an adequate slope.

As noted above, changing the location of these pipes may be a more involved operation than the average person would care to handle. If, as often happens, the waste line runs from the first floor to the cellar, then under the cellar floor to the exterior, the problem is simple: Just box in the pipe where it runs from the cellar floor to ceiling. To change its arrangement would be far more trouble than it's worth.

When the drainage system runs along a wall, possibly a foot or so from it, you'd probably also be better off by simply bringing the entire wall surface out to a point where the waste line can be enclosed naturally. If the drainpipe runs under the joists and then drops down to the cellar floor just before leaving the house, and is right in the middle of the basement recreation room you plan, you might consider running the pipe under the cellar floor for the entire distance.

If you do this, you will have to break open the floor, cut out the soil, and make the necessary connections so the pipe will run at the appropriate slope where it can be brought straight up to connect with existing pipes. Cutting this pipe takes a lot of patience and heat, and the proper tools. For that reason, you should not consider it unless you have (or can borrow) a powerful torch and the large cutting tool that plumbers use.

Backed by building paper, they are stapled to 12-inch furring modules that accommodate their sue. Simple framing of built-in is obvious in photo-

Counter rails were grooved for corrugated plastic doors. With upper grooves deeper, they slip into place. Purposes of the niche are nigh unlimited.

A table for informal dining

You can easily build such a table to desired size. Top of this one is 3/4-inch plywood, finished on one side; bottom ¼-inch fir plywood; front Masonite; supports are made of 2x4's and ¾-inch plywood.

Heating lines may be the most troublesome of all. Of course, it's almost impossible to hide the plenum chamber—the large air tank which stands above a hot-air furnace—and it's equally hard to hide water-heater or a hot-water boiler. The best way to handle them is to partition them off, preferably in a room you can also use for storage.

If you have a gravity hot-air system, it operates on the principle that heat rises and so the ducts must have an upward slope of about one inch per foot. You're better off leaving them as they are.

The same principle might be suggested for forced warm-air heating systems. They are usually installed to provide the greatest possible heat to your rooms with the smallest possible heat loss in places where heat is not wanted. Since any relocation of the ducts may also drastically affect the efficiency of your heating plant and the way that heat is fed to the various rooms in your house, you probably should leave them as they are.

Hot-water heating systems are easier to deal with, although hot-water pipes are less objectionable when exposed. A steam-heating system requires that the pipe be pitched at about one inch every four feet

While no great harm is done by relocating the pipes, the slope must be maintained. You can make the greatest changes with a forced hot-water system. It is even possible to replace cast-iron pipe with copper tubing of similar diameter, and run the tubing either close to the joist or the foundation walls. In typical construction, there is a space between the top of the concrete foundation, and the bottom of the floor joists. The reason is that for six inches on the outside of the foundation walls a 4-inch thick sill generally rests. Upon this sill the joists rest. But the sill occupies only half the typical foundation wall; the other half is open. You can run copper heating lines in this open area. They will be completely hidden when the wall is closed

Note simple construction here. Screws, finishing nails secure two legs of L-shaped table's top.

For effect of thickness on outer edge, attach strips with screws, countersunk and filled over.

Masonite nails to corner supports. Wrought-iron legs that can be purchased are then attached.

Paneling Your Basement

If you plan to use paneling in your basement, you'll need partitions along the inside walls of the rooms you intend to have. You'll also have to attach furring strips to the foundation, to which the finished wall surface can be nailed. These strips are generally an inch thick and three or four inches wide. They should be pretreated with inexpensive water-repellent so that if moisture gets into the wall it won't seriously damage the strips. These repellents are sold at lumberyards and are as easy to put on as paint.

Apply the strips in the direction opposite that to which the long sides of the finished wall surface material will run. If you use random planking like knotty pine, which will run vertically, from the floor to ceiling, the strips should be placed horizontally on the wall. If you use wallboard, plywood, or similar big sheets, the furring should run from floor to ceiling.

Horizontal strips can be spaced about 24 inches on center. Also put one at the top of the wall and another at the floor joint to provide a nailing surface. Strips running from floor to ceiling should be 16 inches on center. An extra strip should be nailed to the foundation where the wall ends, or at any joint.

You can attach the strips in many ways. One method is to use steel-cut nails, which you can drive in with a hammer. For speed, you might rent a stud-driver—a power-hammer which slams nails into concrete surfaces in a second or less.

Rawl plugs also will do the job. First drill holes in the strips where the plugs will be inserted. Then position the strips against the wall. Put a 3/16-inch Rawl drill bit into a hole you have just made and drill it into the concrete. Next put a Rawl plug into the hole in the furring strip and the foundation. Now take a special screw designed for this purpose and screw it through the drilled hole in the furring strip and into the plug. The screw will wedge out the plug and will hold permanently in the wall.

After all your furring strips are firmly attached, place insulation between them. If you're using one-inch strips, use one-inch mineral wool blankets or aluminum foil. Now apply the finished wall surface.

With plywood panels, Masonite and the like, number 5 finishing nails may be the manufacturer's recommendation. With tongue-and-groove panels, nails should be driven through the tongue of each panel into the furring strip. Then the nails are hidden from sight when the job is completed: The groove of the next panel covers the tongue where you have just driven the nail. Note the book's many paneling photos.

A base for plaster walls

Easily cemented to masonry. 1-inch thick Styrofoam provides ample insulation anywhere in the U. S.

In applying big sheets like plywood, nail at an angle. Because the furring strip is only an inch thick, nails driven straight in may hit the concrete and bend—giving you many headaches.

Building partitions for inside walls is not difficult. None of these will have to carry weight imposed from above. And even if heavy material will be hung on them, you can probably use 2x2s or 2x3s instead of the 2x4s which are used in load-bearing partitions upstairs.

First make a chalk line on the basement floor to indicate exactly where you want your partition to go. Let's assume that you are using 2x2s. Put on the floor as many pieces as you need to run the entire length of the partition. These will serve as the floor plates. Similar pieces, adding up to the identical length, should also be placed on the floor—about as far away as the height of the wall will be. They will serve as the ceiling plates.

Now determine the exact height of the basement from floor to ceiling at each end of the partition, and also at the center. Subtract 3½ inches from the height, to allow for the horizontal 2x4s at the bottom and top of the partition. The answer you get will give you the size that each stud should be.

Cut as many studs as you will need, allowing for one stud at each end of the partition and others spaced between at a distance of 16 inches from their centers. Now nail the studs to the base plate and the top plate. You can use 16-penny nails, although many contractors say they get good results with 8-penny ones.

When you have this framework completed, raise it and place it exactly along the chalk line you have drawn. Now nail the base-plate to the floor, using steel-cut nails or Rawl plugs. One nail or plug for each 16 inches of length is about right.

The top plate of the partition can be nailed directly to your floor joists if the partition runs across them. But it may be that the partition runs in the same direction as the joists. If so, nail 2x2s or 2x4s between the joists so that they will cross where your partition will run. You can then nail the top plate of the partition to these cross plates.

Plastering Basement Walls

You can use plaster walls in your basement, by a new method developed by engineers of the Dow Chemical Company. The key material in this process is styro-foam—a light but rigid foam material which makes excellent insulation and is also water-resistant. (The same stuff is used to keep small boats afloat.)

Styrofoam comes in boards of one-inch thickness. You cement it to the foundation walls. If you have to cut it to work around window and door openings, etc., all you need is a sharp knife. Then you just plaster over the styrofoam. Its cellular surface helps hold the plaster in place.

Flooring Your Basement

Probably the most popular floor surfacing material for basement rooms is resilient tile. It is easy to lay, colorful, inexpensive, and long-wearing.

Asphalt tile, the lowest-priced covering, is especially popular in basements. It is not affected by moisture, either above or below. It is available in a wide variety of colors and patterns.

Vinyl-asbestos floor tile has some of the long-wearing qualities of asbestos, combined with the easy-cleanability and long-lasting beauty of vinyl. It is quite a bit more expensive than asphalt, but less expensive than solid vinyl.

This tile can be laid directly on the basement cement floor. It is extremely easy to handle. You can cut and fit it with ordinary scissors.

You'll find any tile easy to lay. Major points to remember are that you must be sure of your floor plan in advance and that you start laying tile in the exact middle of the room. The manufacturers have adhesives they recommend to hold the tile to the concrete. With a few simple tools, you can spread this adhesive, then lay the tile almost as easily as you can put one card next to another. Usually you can walk on the tile soon after it is laid. A room that is tiled today is fully useful tomorrow.

Sound-Proofing Your Basement

Since one of the reasons for fixing up the basement is to give the family recreation space, a workshop or hobby area, it's obvious that much noise will originate there.

Material is easily cut with any wood-working tool —or a pocket knife. It's placed over duct here.

Plaster is applied directly to' it. The rigid foam material provides you with superior plaster key.

Over a smooth. freshly-swept concrete floor, spread a thin, even layer of the recommended mastic.

How to install floor tile

Place edges of the individual tile next to edges of ones previously laid. Just let it fall in place.

On your basement ceiling, you'll probably want a material that will catch and hold sound waves reaching it. The success of sound-proofing programs in factories and offices proves that this method of controlling noise really works. There are a hundred different materials used for this purpose. These run from mineral and glass wool to cork chips, special handmade fibers, plastic, and various hardboards.

You can get tiles in different sizes. Twelve and sixteen-inch squares are most common. They can be put on old surfaces— cemented directly to plaster or wallboard, for instance—or they can be stapled into place over furring strips which have been nailed to the ceiling joists.

Several precautions must be observed. The old surface or the furring strips must be absolutely level. If the old surface is uneven, you will have a bumpy, irregular ceiling. If the old ceiling is too bumpy, you should put in furring strips to take the tile size you have in mind. Use shims to make the strips level.

Although many manufacturers say that 1x2 strips can be used, contractors have discovered that it's better to be on the safe side and to use 1x3s or lx4s. Their reasoning: The edge of each tile must have a solid place to rest on. If the strip isn't wide enough, any little error you have made in its placement will show up. And you may find yourself without a surface to staple the tile to.

One of the keys to a good, professional-looking tile job is the placing of the furring strips. These should be positioned with care, so that tiles cut to the same width can be found on opposite sides of the room. That means you must place your first strip in the exact center of the room. If the room is small, any deviation from this rule will be apparent: On one side of the room you may have a full tile and on the other, maybe only a fraction of a tile. In a good job, the full tiles on opposite sides of the ceiling will end exactly the same distance from the wall.

Ceiling tiles are made with tongue-and-groove joints to provide the same kind of interlock that you get in tongue-and-groove paneling. Tiles can be stapled or nailed to the furring strips. When they are in place, only a thin line will separate one tile from another.

Before you apply the tile, it's smart to decide what size trim you'll use to cover inevitable gaps between the wall and ceiling. Obviously, if you use wide trim, you allow yourself a greater margin of error. Even if your end tiles are not cut to exact size, the trim will cover up for you.

Improving Your Stairs

Another overlooked possibility for home improvement lies in the stairs to the basement from the first floor. Most houses 20 or more years old were built by men who thought of the cellar as a place for coal storage only. You can understand why they spent so little time and money in putting in decent stairs. Typical old-type stairs are too steep, too narrow and too rickety for safety.

Stairs are often the last thing to be improved in the house. The reason has been that they have often been considered beyond the ability of reasonably competent handy men, As a matter of fact, even carpenters of long experience have often shied from stair-building. It was a job left to specialists, to men who were not fazed by the thought that the entire job might be ruined by a mistake of an inch or so in their calculations.

When scored first with sharp instrument, vinyl-type tile separates cleanly. Place cut side against wall. Roller that can be rented eliminates tiny ridges. Floor molding completes the installation.

All that is in the past, because it's now possible for anyone—even a rank dub—to build a good, soundly-engineered set of stairs. The trick is to use new inexpensive steel forms as patterns. You just nail wood stringers and treads to these forms. Saw these stringers along the lines provided by the forms, then nail treads on the cut-out parts, and you have a precise product.

These steel forms, called Stairgides, not only eliminate errors in stair-building, but also make it possible to save up to eighty per cent of the time that even experienced men formerly needed to put them together.

You can use these forms not only in building stairs from the first floor to the basement, but in any part of the house. The forms are designed to fit the standard height from the first floor to the basement floor, but you can shorten this distance where necessary simply by cutting through the steel forms with an ordinary hacksaw. If you need stairs that run for a height greater than 8 feet, 4 inches, you can use two or more sets of the forms.

Basement Vail-Out Shelter

The Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization is making a determined effort to convince all Americans of the need of preparing some sort of fall-out shelter.

You have some degree of ready-built protection against fallout in your basement. Scientists say that any mass of sufficient size will make you safe. The experts estimate that you can get the same amount of protection against fallout by a shield of eight inches of concrete as you can from twelve inches of earth, sixteen inches of books or thirty inches of wood. In most of the country—everywhere except in areas hit by the heaviest fallout—these thicknesses would give ample protection, according to the O.C.D.M.

You can build a basement shelter with solid concrete blocks as a do-it-yourself project at a cost of between $150 and $200. Says the O.C.D.M.: "This shelter would provide all the protection needed in most of the nation. That means it would save many lives, even in the areas of heaviest fallout, and most lives everywhere else." You can build a shelter with either solid concrete blocks, or with concrete blocks which you fill with mortar.

Set the first row of blocks in about % of an inch of wet mortar along lines marked on the basement floor. If you can get to use a power hammer to cut holes in the concrete floor and thus provide a more secure hold for the mortar, do so.

First build the corner to about six blocks in height. Then bring the rest of the wall to the same height Raise the corner up once more, and the rest of the wall as well. The wall is not raised all the way to the basement ceiling, because you need a clear space of about sixteen inches to build a shelter roof. After the roof is built, the concrete blocks can be built up to reach it.

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