About 10 years ago I turned a garage into a studio apt. It had the exact
problem that you have. I decided not to frame in the foundation lip. I taped
the upper drywall and textured the entire thing, including the concrete. I
then painted everything and made a piece of 2x2 wood molding that wrapped
around the lip. It turned out much better than I would have thought before
hand. After all of these years I have had no problems with the texture or
paint on the concrete. You could spray texture and paint on the pipe, but I
think that I would make some sort of nice wood box that ties into the heater
to protect the pipe and stain it the same as the molding.
The molding fits tight to the sheet rock but has about 1/4" clearance on the
front of the concrete in some spots due to the run out in the sill plate
where it is bolted to the foundation. You would have to use a mirror to see
it.

It was a very inexpensive fix to the problem and really does look quite
nice.

CR




"Phreak" wrote in message
news:fN8Gd.98622$dv1.25669@edtnps89...
Hi, please see the picture posted at the URL below.

http://www.gosea.com/basement/basement.jpg

I am trying to figure out how to frame the concrete portionof this wall.
The
above portion was drywalled by the builders when they sold it to us, the
basement was supposed to be unfinished.

I have a few questions:
- can I frame with strapping instead of 2x4 because of the clearance
between
the wall and the back of the heater - about 2", as you can see by the wood
that is there holding it out
- using construction adhesive with th ewood directly against the concrete,
or do I need to
- do I need to drill the concrete for screws instead (don't want to)

Some points:
- concrete is above grade
- sill on top of concrete is about 2" wide, clearance for pipe is about
2.5-3"
- clearance behind heater is about 2"