Don Lidtke
Some Old Guy
The time has come for me to venture into the realm of a build thread, so, here goes.
A little history about how I got here. My Love and I decided that if we were to get involved with our only grandsons life that we needed to be closer to him. This lead to the decision that we needed to move from the Silicon Valley in CA to the Salt Lake City area of Utah. During the process of finding a new home My Love and I had a discussion about what I would like to do in my retirement. I wasn't really sure. I had gone back to college and started working on a 4 year degree in something other than computers. I had just retired from the 24/7 lifestyle that comes with being a sysadmin and neither of us wanted to deal with that anymore, 35 years was sufficient.
My Love was the one that reminded me of the saltwater fish only tank I had run 25 years ago and wondered if now would be a good time to set up another tank. Honestly, I had put this out of my mind when I took down the tank and gave it away to a friend. Now would be the perfect time to do so. With that in mind we started talking about where a tank would go, the size and type of tank. With the advent of technological improvements, the wealth of knowledge available on the internet and the fact that my personality is in details it seemed a reef tank should be in our future.
Another huge advantage to moving to UT was basements! Nearly every home we looked at had one. It also became apparent that an unfinished basement would be ideal. After an exhaustive search we came upon the house we currently own. Everything we needed for our aging bodies was on the main level and the basement was a clean slate to be designed to our likes.
What follows are the pictures of the transformation of the downstairs of our new home. A side note, I was chidid by a very close friend after she saw the completed basement, that we were no longer allowed to call it a basement because basements did not look like ours. It would be referred to henceforth as the downstairs.
The first two pictures are the start of the remodel, nothing but studs, but that is a pretty good place to start.
The pass thru into the fish room so that I can run “stuff” between the tank and fish room.
The plumbing for the sink.
I built a house in 1980 where I had to cut and sweat copper pipes but today with SharkBites and PEX piping, wow, things are so much faster and hassle free. Oh ya, no leaks!
Hardie board being installed. What marvelous stuff!
Power and networking installed.
Sheetrock and taping done. The job is almost complete!
The painting is done so now I can start on the actual fishroom work.
Time to start painting. I am a bit of an odd duck in that I enjoy taping. It started back when I was helping a buddy with his body shop, way back in my youth. He said he needed someone to help and I was available so I said I could help out. He asked if I had any experience, which I did not, but he tossed me a roll of masking tape and asked me to lay a line done. He was shocked at how I did it and said I must have done that before because I started the tape and run the run the entire length without a break. He said that most people would tear a piece off and than lay it down. I started working for him, he showed me the tricks of the trade and I was his taper. In fact I was hired out to the other guys in the shop ,when things were slow, or they had a car they did not want to tape. Anyone for a 1965 Cadillac with the full chrome package? All that chrome, I was in heaven! So ya, a bit of an odd duck...lol!
My Love chose the colors because I was ready to go with Navy camo. This is a much better choice!
And DONE! I was very happy with the outcome.
Time for some storage...
Ready to start building the water storage...
A little history about how I got here. My Love and I decided that if we were to get involved with our only grandsons life that we needed to be closer to him. This lead to the decision that we needed to move from the Silicon Valley in CA to the Salt Lake City area of Utah. During the process of finding a new home My Love and I had a discussion about what I would like to do in my retirement. I wasn't really sure. I had gone back to college and started working on a 4 year degree in something other than computers. I had just retired from the 24/7 lifestyle that comes with being a sysadmin and neither of us wanted to deal with that anymore, 35 years was sufficient.
My Love was the one that reminded me of the saltwater fish only tank I had run 25 years ago and wondered if now would be a good time to set up another tank. Honestly, I had put this out of my mind when I took down the tank and gave it away to a friend. Now would be the perfect time to do so. With that in mind we started talking about where a tank would go, the size and type of tank. With the advent of technological improvements, the wealth of knowledge available on the internet and the fact that my personality is in details it seemed a reef tank should be in our future.
Another huge advantage to moving to UT was basements! Nearly every home we looked at had one. It also became apparent that an unfinished basement would be ideal. After an exhaustive search we came upon the house we currently own. Everything we needed for our aging bodies was on the main level and the basement was a clean slate to be designed to our likes.
What follows are the pictures of the transformation of the downstairs of our new home. A side note, I was chidid by a very close friend after she saw the completed basement, that we were no longer allowed to call it a basement because basements did not look like ours. It would be referred to henceforth as the downstairs.
The first two pictures are the start of the remodel, nothing but studs, but that is a pretty good place to start.
The pass thru into the fish room so that I can run “stuff” between the tank and fish room.
The plumbing for the sink.
I built a house in 1980 where I had to cut and sweat copper pipes but today with SharkBites and PEX piping, wow, things are so much faster and hassle free. Oh ya, no leaks!
Hardie board being installed. What marvelous stuff!
Power and networking installed.
Sheetrock and taping done. The job is almost complete!
The painting is done so now I can start on the actual fishroom work.
Time to start painting. I am a bit of an odd duck in that I enjoy taping. It started back when I was helping a buddy with his body shop, way back in my youth. He said he needed someone to help and I was available so I said I could help out. He asked if I had any experience, which I did not, but he tossed me a roll of masking tape and asked me to lay a line done. He was shocked at how I did it and said I must have done that before because I started the tape and run the run the entire length without a break. He said that most people would tear a piece off and than lay it down. I started working for him, he showed me the tricks of the trade and I was his taper. In fact I was hired out to the other guys in the shop ,when things were slow, or they had a car they did not want to tape. Anyone for a 1965 Cadillac with the full chrome package? All that chrome, I was in heaven! So ya, a bit of an odd duck...lol!
My Love chose the colors because I was ready to go with Navy camo. This is a much better choice!
And DONE! I was very happy with the outcome.
Time for some storage...
Ready to start building the water storage...
