Ever wonder what the underneath of your house looks like? Well, don't bother - it's ugly and it's not a place you need to spend time. Trust me. We just spent possibly the nicest weekend in the Bay Area spelunking in our own house. The crawl space where all of the work was done is about 4 feet clearance at the upside, less if you consider the joists, which are spaced every 16 inches.
In other words, there's a reason it's called a "crawl" space.
On the good side: Dave managed to find a place with kiln-dried lumber (see pic left: KD= kiln dried) and got everything we need from one place with only minimal attitude and a much cheaper price than T&W. I mean, if you're going to pay their prices, you would think they could tone down the 'tude.
Saturday we managed to complete all of the blocking between the joists. Blocking is for extra solid flooring below tiles. It seemed to work, the floor is a lot stiffer now. This was a lot more difficult than we had figured as it was very difficult to get the cordless drill into the 14 1/2 inch spacing between joists and to get enough pressure on the drill to actually go anywhere. Oh, and some of the joists were a little closer than that. Also, the screws had a phillips head and the drill bit slipped a lot. I mean, a lot. At any rate, it was a real pain in the ass. Not to mention the constant up and down from floor level to subfloor dungeon.
Sunday, again, was spent in the cave. Luckily we have cool headlamps from REI. And kneepads.
I could not work under there without the knee pads - a life-saver! This time we were sistering some joists. One of them had a large bite out of it - something the previous owners did around the bathtub, although it was not right where the drain was, so maybe their math was off. Anyway, it seemed weak and has a little bit of water damage, so we thought we'd better sister it. We also had to sister the joist under where we are about to construct a new wall.
So now the floor has been completely reinforced and we are ready to start building up. The slightly unfortunate thing is that there is no visible progress from ground level. Sigh. Pictured above right is the sistering of the joist with the defect - you can see the new very white joist next to the old redwood joist with a notch out of it. [for those who have been following: yes, as far as we have found, the entire house was constructed from redwood.] So no new photos of any progress at this point. Suffice to say, we have laid the foundation (is it okay to use a construction analogy for other construction work? it seems wrong somehow) for building the new bath and bedroom.
In other words, there's a reason it's called a "crawl" space.
On the good side: Dave managed to find a place with kiln-dried lumber (see pic left: KD= kiln dried) and got everything we need from one place with only minimal attitude and a much cheaper price than T&W. I mean, if you're going to pay their prices, you would think they could tone down the 'tude.Saturday we managed to complete all of the blocking between the joists. Blocking is for extra solid flooring below tiles. It seemed to work, the floor is a lot stiffer now. This was a lot more difficult than we had figured as it was very difficult to get the cordless drill into the 14 1/2 inch spacing between joists and to get enough pressure on the drill to actually go anywhere. Oh, and some of the joists were a little closer than that. Also, the screws had a phillips head and the drill bit slipped a lot. I mean, a lot. At any rate, it was a real pain in the ass. Not to mention the constant up and down from floor level to subfloor dungeon.
Sunday, again, was spent in the cave. Luckily we have cool headlamps from REI. And kneepads.
I could not work under there without the knee pads - a life-saver! This time we were sistering some joists. One of them had a large bite out of it - something the previous owners did around the bathtub, although it was not right where the drain was, so maybe their math was off. Anyway, it seemed weak and has a little bit of water damage, so we thought we'd better sister it. We also had to sister the joist under where we are about to construct a new wall.So now the floor has been completely reinforced and we are ready to start building up. The slightly unfortunate thing is that there is no visible progress from ground level. Sigh. Pictured above right is the sistering of the joist with the defect - you can see the new very white joist next to the old redwood joist with a notch out of it. [for those who have been following: yes, as far as we have found, the entire house was constructed from redwood.] So no new photos of any progress at this point. Suffice to say, we have laid the foundation (is it okay to use a construction analogy for other construction work? it seems wrong somehow) for building the new bath and bedroom.
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