Ahem...

Ahem -- "nothing" apparently includes pulling out tons of staples left from the various floor coverings that have been in that space over the years, cleaning up the mildew that was left on the surface of the existing subfloor due the leak that was the root cause of all this fun (yuck!), and putting lots of screws in the old subfloor to keep it from squeaking.

The Great Wall

Due to tropical storm Hanna, we accomplished nothing on Saturday - it was too wet to cut lumber outside! We spent last weekend in Pittsburgh for James's cousin's bridal shower, so we didn't accomplish anything last weekend.

But, alas, the weather cooperated today and we started to rebuild the wall we had to take down in order to rip up the subfloor (although after church and a trip to our favorite store, Home Depot, it was rather late!) This would seem like a simple task, but nothing in this project turns out that way. The water lines for the shower run in this wall, so we had to shut off the water and remove the valves in order to get the sole plate (the bottom 2x4) for the wall over the piping. Ain't that a beautiful sole plate!

We selected our tile eons ago, and it looks like it's about time to order it as it will take 2 weeks... more on this later!

Oh yeah...

...the floor now has very little deflection - so we achieved our goal by reinforcing the joists. We're still going to put an extra 1/2" of plywood underlayment down to limit it even more.

Woo-hoo!

(ok, so when you're in video mode you shouldn't turn the camera sideways!)

We Deserved a Break...

That, and we had a wedding to go to in Delaware this weekend :-) The wedding was beautiful. It was at Winterthur which was the duPont estate. The ceremony was in this little garden, the cocktail hour was at the reflecting pool, and the reception was in the visitor's center. The detail in the wedding was amazing - everything went together, from the invitation to the decorations for the reception. The bride really outdid herself. They had a 9 piece band that played everything from the oldies to Bon Jovi. We all had a fantastic time!

I did not update after last weekend, but we did finish the drain piping. We also spanned 2x4s between the joists under the edge of the existing subfloor to add strength. The next step is to put the new subfloor down and build the wall we had to demolish. We should start this early next Saturday, as we'll have to turn the water off in the house as the cold and hot water lines go through the new piece of subfloor.

IOC Announces New Event: Cross-Country Lumber Locating

Yep, that's right, it's a new Olympic sport. We competed in it yesterday; got the bronze. The 5/8" subfloor locating was the hardest portion of the event for us to complete. We started at the neighborhood Home Depot and purchased the gyp board we'd need. Then we drove to a real lumber yard, but it was 5 on a Saturday and they close at 2. Lowe's had it but all their pieces were damaged. We stopped at Costco for stomach refueling. The next Home Depot did not have it, but the guy recommended the lumber yard (which was closed). Then we went to another Lowe's where we finally located the required product. They also had the 1/2" underlayment we needed. We then went home to receive our medal in the event. We received high points for difficulty but lost points for execution because when our route was plotted on a map it looked like an amorphous blob. Oh well, at least we got a medal...

The Word of the Day Is...

Aleve. What a fabulous drug! Getting out of bed this morning was amazingly hard because I didn't take my Aleve early enough yesterday. I will have to remember this as the project proceeds.

We finished reinforcing the joists as best as possible. The wonderful builder of our home didn't lay things out well, so in order to put the kitchen light fixture in the center of the room they moved one end of one of the joist, resulting in a bowed joist that didn't adhere well to the new reinforcing. Quality work, eh?

Apparently I need to back-track a bit because not all the readers of this blog are engineers, nor did they all have materials science or similar courses. That being said, the problem with our joists is that they moved downward too much when weight was applied to them. If too much of that bending (a.k.a. deflection) occurs the tiles will separate from the thin-set that adheres them to the floor or the grout or tile will crack.

We've borrowed mom's truck for the week in order to acquire all the big materials for the project, such as plywood and backer board.