Plywood Underlayment!!!

Plywood Underlayment!!! I use three exclamation points to try and make that sound exciting!!!

After leveling the floor (a little bit) by fixing the broken joist (kinda), I laid down some 1/4 inch plywood on top of the asphalt felt. Here is what that looked like!


Once all the sheets were arranged on the floor, we breathed a sigh of relief. We had been living with a tar paper kitchen for over a week.


THIS IS A PICTURE OF ME BEING STUPID.


Apparently, when securing plywood to a floor, one must use deck screws, not finish nails. So, once I had nailed all these sheets down, I had to find the joist locations. Since the joists were under a layer of plywood, tar paper, and 3/4" subfloor, I had to go into the crawlspace and call out measurements for Annie to write down. After that, I came back up and marked all of the joists on the floor:


I like blue lines. We got a ton (3 lb.) of ceramic-coated deck screws and went crazy.

THIS IS A PICTURE OF ME BEING SMARTER.


I should have gotten advice beforehand.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 - If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom [is] profitable to direct.

In Which the House Gets Jacked Up

There is a joist under the south wall of the kitchen in which a huge cutout was made to accomodate some ancient plumbing rearrangement. The cut allowed the southeast corner of the kitchen to sink a bit. I borrowed some jacks (Thanks, Tom!) and set to work propping the joist up little by little. Almost a week later, it was mostly level. The west side was, at any rate. The east side wasn't strong enough, I fear. It began to show some minor cracks and I realized that it just wasn't going to handle the continued pressing of the jacks for much longer, so I braced it the way it was.

Going underneath the house everyday for nearly a week had its effect on me, though. I don't feel so bad about spelunking the crawlspace, which may be because of the plastic sheeting I laid down.

All of that work was to prepare the way for further work on the floor, which needed to be as level as possible. More later!

While We Were Out

After ruthlessly gutting the kitchen and leaving it a roughly opened carcass, we left for a week. When we returned, our non-kitchen suddenly appeared like so:




BRAND NEW CABINETS. We are quite pleased. Oh, and the countertops? Also brand new. The stove is the same old one. Here's our old cabinet configuration, for comparison:


The big difference is that we now have cabinets along TWO walls. The next step was to hoist a joist, which was partially successful. Details later!

Post 150

A landmark post! One hundred and fifty. If I had a nickel for every post we've made on here, i'd have $7.50. That might get me into a theater, but I don't think it'll cover popcorn.

After stripping the room and repairing the rotted subfloor, we shored up the weak spots, as Jon here demonstrates.



After identifying the weak spot (by stepping on it and breaking it, usually), we'd take another bit of wood and screw it into the bad board after screwing the bit of wood into the two floorboards on either side. It worked pretty well.

When all that was done, we laid asphalt felt!



After this, we vacationed for a week, leaving the house on a low simmer. When we came back, what did we find? Tune in tomorrow!

Subfloor Repair

Once we cleared everything out, we found some parts of the floor were weaker than others.



So we decided to repair those weak spots! Let's cut 3/4" treated plywood down to size!


We could probably affix it to the joists with some screws and some effort...



And then we were left with a more handsome subfloor. There were still some weak spots, though they offered more resistance than the completely rotten portions we just replaced. How did we deal with those feeble areas? Explanations forthcoming!

Out with a Bang

We continued removing cabinets. Look, there are some now!


What's behind it? Ooh, gross!



I had to cut that out, sweep it clean, and then put in a new drywall patch. I'm not proud of the job I did, but it seems to have worked.

Once we removed the cabinets, we had to find a place for them to go. Compacting them seemed the next logical step. Witness Mark's preparation!


...and his follow-through.



At this point, the subfloor was exposed inside the house. What fun! I hope to show you how awesome it was tomorrow.

Demolicious!

Cabinetry was removed. Pictures below. Gotta go!

Demolition Continued!

After clearing the floor, we started tearing the floor to pieces. View the beginnings of what would soon become the utter destruction of thirty square feet of hardwood flooring!




Matt M. came over to help us clear the last bit of it. With the hardwood half of the kitchen floor gone, the plywood half was all that remained!

All that remained of the floor, that is. Cabinets and subfloor issues in the near future! Stay tuned!

Demolition!

Just before Spring Break, we decided to have some friends over and tear open our kitchen. I'll be posting little bits of that process over the next couple of days. First, it was of course necessary to remove the appliances from the kitchen.


See what a good job we did? Otherwise, there'd still have been an oven there!


A few more shots to establish the pre-demolition state.




We soon got well into the dismantling of this hardwood flooring. More pics tomorrow!

Subterranean Slip 'n' Slide

Hi, All,

Recently, I've been spending a great deal of time in the crawlspace. I decided that it finally needed to have some plastic sheeting in there, and it is AMAZING. It makes it about 1000 times more habitable down there. I actually heard yesterday about a man who hand-dug his own basement underneath his house...perhaps that's a project for later on.

And why have I been under the house? I'll tell you that later on, as well.