Help Me Finish My Unfinished Basement

[nereo]

Another vote for getting a nail gun.  I tried doing trim without one and it was a revelation once I had an 18 gauge finish nailer.  I get much better results faster with a nail gun than I ever could with a hammer.

As for the battery/pneumatic... dunno.  You can buy a small pancake compressor with nailer and crown stapler for under $200, and once you have one a compressor comes in really handy, and tools are much cheaper.  Harbor freight has them for $99. But the compressor is loud.  OTOH it doesn’t require a battery, which may or may not matter (if you’ve already got Ryobi tools and batteries its not a big deal).

Another option is to buy the nice tool, use it for this project and sell it on CL for 75% of what you bought it for (to get an easy, fast sale).  Consider it a long-term rental. 

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Just to provide an update:

- Framing is finished. Subbed this out at $30/hour (friends and family rate from one of my contractor clients).

- Electrical is 90% done. Also subbed this out.

- Ceiling is painted. I ended up going with a light gray and I think it looks really good. It's interesting in that the ceiling is pretty light, but just leaving the joists exposed still leaves a lot of dark shadows. It's cool.

- Putting drywall/beadboard up now. Took me about 1.5 hours to hang 4 sheets last night. I imagine I'll get quicker with time, but there are 23 sheets total. Not terrible.

- Goal is to be done with drywall this week, start flooring next week. Ended up choosing that brand I mentioned earlier.