Finally! The Floor!

As mentioned earlier in this account, everything in this house is a little crooked. One corner of the kitchen sub-floor sloped downward toward the northwest. I decided to use a cement based skimcoat to level it.

I temporarily installed a block of wood to act as a form for the A/C register and attempted to pour the filler and fix the problem. I use the word "attempted" because the material did not flow like I expected it to, and it was very sticky. It stuck to my trowel! What a mess!

The next morning I removed the form and used my big belt sander to knock down the humps and bumps.

Knowing that the floor panels had to be oriented in the same direction for the interlocking edges to fit, I drew a layout on the computer in order to make the most of the cut pieces. We then spent a couple of hours laying out and rearranging the panels so that the finished pattern would suit us. We tagged each one with a number that corresponded to the drawing.

I put an 80 tooth carbide blade in the table saw, and started cutting. It cut smoothly and the sections went together pretty easily once we figured it out. There were a few tricky cuts and I made a few mistakes. However, the pieces I cut wrong were all still usable—save one. We'll try to use that section in the bathroom when we get to it.

I measured and cut the baseboards. It was like a puzzle so I numbered each piece and marked the surfaces that were to remain unfinished. My wife painted everything that wasn't marked. Being this close to com-

pletion, the anticipation got the best of me. I took a day off from work to install the baseboards. After a little touch-up painting we were able to move the refrigerator into the kitchen and into place. Finally, I connected the water to the frig, and it started making ice!

With little left to do but blinds and curtains, we turned our attention to the living room. This is a big open room and the space directly below it, which originally was a two car garage, is also wide open. The floor joists are nothing more than 2 X 10s on edge. The whole floor sags slightly in the center and creaks mightily when walked upon. The first step, then, was to build a couple of new walls downstairs to add support to

the upstairs. To facilitate the building of these walls we needed to shuffle things around. We needed more temporary storage space. I demolished the remainder of the "old kitchen".

The first thing we moved in was the monstrous cabinet we had removed from the kitchen/living room junction (see August 2007). We'll reuse it in one of the utility areas.

Then we brought in a bunch of stuff from the "old garage". As it turned out, we had about as much junk as my mother-in-law, but we stacked ours in neat rows with each box's contents written on all four sides. Most of this crap was mine and I vowed that the bulk of it would be disposed of in future garage sales and donations. My wife remains skeptical.

We wrecked out the free standing and atrocious shelving unit to make way for a new wall—a strategically placed wall that will not only divide the downstairs bathroom from the kid’s play room, but add support.

The sagging living room was not a new problem. Early on, a row of posts was set to help hold things up. However, soon after her husband's passing, my mother-in-law removed the posts because they were in her way.

It wasn't long before she realized that they were needed, so she had a huge laminated wooden beam installed in their stead. It rested on a single post at one end and was attached with a steel bracket to a second

shorter beam at the other. The whole affair was arranged like a big ‘T’ with the shorter beam resting on two posts. The trouble was, the long beam sagged when it was installed, and it was in the wrong place.

We discussed our options. We couldn't leave it where it was, but if we removed it, what would we do with it? How would we dispose of it? After some deliberation we decided

the best thing to do would be to move it over about three feet and reinstall it at the top of the new closet wall.

I weighed a 2 X 4 on the bathroom scale and measured the beam. A little basic mathematics gave me an estimated weight of 130 pounds. At fifteen feet long, it would be awkward and dangerous to maneuver. To handle the job, I built two really tall saw horses. They looked like giraffes.

We unbolted the bracket between the beams and lowered the long beam onto the saw giraffes. Then we took down the short beam. Curiosity running rampant, we weighed the short beam. It weighed 79 lbs and was just over 80" long. That's about a pound per linear inch. My original estimate

was off by about 50 lbs.

I continued wrecking out the downstairs bathroom (see October 2007). The weakest spot in the living room was directly above the original front wall of this room. Since we will be expanding this bathroom to include a shower, I removed the wall completely. I will use the short beam to span this space and push the whole area up in the process.

Combining my camera tripod and laser level I fashioned a stable yet adjustable builder’s level. I marked a spot near the stairway that was supported well and would not move. I placed a bench mark on the corner of the existing stairway railing. Then I marked a piece of salvaged molding to use as a story pole. This arraignment at hand, I began the process of determining the extent of the floor’s sag.