“Honey Do” Hot Place

[SawyerTed]

That's Red Rosin Paper.  It's supposed to be a squeak reduction, dust and vapor barrier.  

Who knows?  There's all kinds of materials used between subfloor and flooring.  The National Hardwood Flooring Association recommends asphalt roofing felt. I'm not putting that under my flooring.   

Red rosin paper is pretty benign stuff.  My basement is a very dry basement so I'm not sure anything is really necessary.  

Red Rosin paper is also cheap at $16.00 for 400 square feet. 

[Southside]

Yea, I bought my 35 to do some projects around the farm and house remodel too. We see how that worked out... :D

[SawyerTed]

Mitzy, our 16 year old dog, supervised my work Wednesday.  You can see there's about a dozen rows left.   

Every row of flooring requires the end board to be cut to fit.   Even running three or four staggered rows, it takes time to get the measurements and cut the end boards.  I'm sawing outside at this point. 

 The short wall to my left was out of square by 3/4".  It will be interesting to see how the floor runs out against the wall  on the right. 



 

[GAB]

SawyerTed:
Do not for a billionth of a nanosecond think that I am jealous or envious you, cuz I'm not.
I have enjoyed your remodeling threads, and thanks for the ride from a distance.
On this latest job, I'm thinking your most important tools are knee pads.
GAB

[SawyerTed]

No worries!  :D  I enjoy a project even as exhausting as it might be.  DIY renovations aren't for everyone despite what the DIY shows make people think. More than once a buddy has called and asked for help after getting into a project. 

Some of my local friends have asked, "Why don't you just hire a contractor or someone to do that?" 

But when they see the finished project they ask, "You did that?  It's very nice!  What did it cost?"   8)

I usually tell them the contractor price before telling what we spent.   :D

[scsmith42]

Ted, everything looks great!  You've really done a nice job on the entire project.  Well done sir!

[SawyerTed]

Thank you, Scott.

[SawyerTed]

The best laid plans.. 

I've lost momentum and some time time for  two reasons.  The first is I've caught the crud my wife fought last week.  

The second is I needed a hardwood flooring jack,   It is a ratchet type device that presses against the bottom plate on the stud wall and applies pressure on the last few courses of flooring.  It closes any gaps on the last 4 or 5 courses.  

The flooring nailer doesn't work close to the beginning and ending walls.  On the beginning the shoe and handle won't let the tool fit to the tongue of the flooring.   On the ending wall, there's not space to swing the mallet. 

So the last few rows have to be hand nailed or nailed with a finish nailer.  

I thought I ordered the flooring jack last weekend.  But I didn't.  

Emily wants custom baseboard.  To do that I had to order knives for the molder.  They will arrive Monday.  

[Tom King]

A flooring jack would be nice, but I always got by with blocks of wood and a long flat bar (Superbar) twisting it sideways for leverage while toenailing all but the last board over the tongue by hand.

I built new houses for a living, doing everything myself with a couple of uneducated helpers, for 33 years.

[SawyerTed]

I thought about various alternatives.  With several more rooms to do in the future, $35 wasn't a crazy amount for the tool.  

It did the trick.  


 
From the bottom of the window, that wall kicks out about one inch.  

Otherwise the flooring came out square on the final edge.  

[Tom King]

Looks good to me!

[Resonator]

that wall kicks out about one inch.

Good spot for thick baseboard or baseboard plus a 1/4 round shoe.

[SawyerTed]

I put in a tapered strip to fill that gap.   I was advised to leave a 3/4" gap on both sides of the floor and 1/4" on the ends.    So a tapered filler was necessary for about  48". The rest of the 16'6" wall was square with the opposite wall.  

Emily wants stain grade baseboard.  It's less expensive to make it than buy it.  So there will be a 3/4" thick custom baseboard and a 1/4 round as you suggest.  

[Tom King]

I've seen worse.   I have a little bathroom house on our point that I'm getting ready to redo.  The building is about 12x12.  One gable end is 3-1/2" wider than the other end-mark once and let it go.

It originally, before I owned it, had four small bathrooms in it.  Sometime before we got the land it's sitting on, it was gutted.  I would tear the whole thing down and redo it, but it's brick so the outside will last, and really more work and permits than I wanted to get into.

I'm going to put in two nice tiled bathrooms.  In order to get the rooms square, I had to build a tapered dividing wall with every stud a different width.

[SawyerTed]

Sometimes keeping the "grandfathered in" structure is easier than permits to rebuild especially on the water.  Rules change and make putting the same thing back difficult.  

It pays to learn how to compensate for those out of square and out if plumb problems.  

[Southside]

Two pieces of scrap flooring cut into long triangles will give you an amazing amount of leverage to put those last pieces in. You screw down one of the triangles and wedge in the other, @Wudman showed me that trick when we put down 1 1/2" x 6" thick T+G flooring in parts of the mill shed, that became a chicken brooder instead of a filing room, but we won't talk about that.  :D The 14'x40' dedicated brooder is on the schedule for this spring - maybe I will get some of my mill shed back.  

[SawyerTed]

Phase 2 is done but for a few decorations and pictures on the walls.  Most importantly I get to sleep in my own room with my own wife!   :D Not that I sleep with anybody else's wife...

Phase 1 was the bathroom.  Phase 3 is enclosing the porch to build a closet where the window without the curtains is.  That will be the closet door.  

Shew buddy I'm tired!


 

[Stephen1]

Looks great! Now you can come to the sawing project 8) 8)

[SawyerTed]

I wish!  We have a long planned trip with reservations, airfare etc.  I just couldn't change all of that. 

Better planning next year.   

[Southside]

Whose bed have your boots been under Ted?    ;D

[SawyerTed]

A much needed sabbatical from the MAJOR Honey Do List is sadly over!

It's time for phase 3 of the bathroom/bedroom/closet renovation. 

This will be the Doctor's closet.  She's been using an upstairs bedroom as a closet/dressing room since December.  I guess I better get back to work!  Did you hear a whip crack?!?  She's not even home!   :D

This was the end of the wrap around porch at the bedroom.   The window will become a cased opening. We will add a door and a deck on this side of the house. 

For what it's worth, the floor jack really isn't supporting the roof,  the post on the right is carrying most of the load.  But I like it there for peace of mind. 



 

 

[Nebraska]

Good luck, I am just good and started on a bathroom and two more bedrooms in the basement of our cabin....

[Stephen1]

I love the floor jack! 8)

[SawyerTed]

Today's progress.  

The orange box store botched my order.  Missing a couple of pieces and they apparently don't know the difference between a 2x12and a 2x10.  Thankfully I caught their error and built to the materials on hand. 

I need one more 2x12 to finish the band.  

NOTE:  The floor jack is gone.  


 

[SawyerTed]

Since the last update we insulated the floor and installed the subfloor.  I'll have to add plywood over the OSB subfloor to level up with the existing bedroom floor and to nail the hardwood flooring to. 

Friday, we removed  the siding from the house.   Emily wants to try to reuse it.  There wasn't a good way to pull it off.  I wound up driving the nails through with a punch/nail set.  

We framed the weight bearing wall on Friday as well.  Today I applied the OSB on that wall and finished framing the end wall.  I left the sheathing off so I can get the other materials in without going through the house or lifting as high to come in the doorway.  



 

 

 

So project creep has begun!  Change order #1 - build cabinets with drawers on the end where the blue ladder is leaning.  She really needs that.  

Change order #2 - build a 12' deck that ties the front porch to the existing back deck.  I'm thinking screen porch. 

Shew Buddy!  I'm tired.