Matt Kelleher House and Studio Project Page 5/New Floors

My dad came down for a week to start work on the floor. The original floor was built on 2x8 joists with 16" centers under the kitchen and bathroom. The rest of the house was true 2x6 rough cut joists with 24" centers. I choose to upgrade the entire floor to 2x8 with 16" centers. Two new beams also had to be put in to secure the joists. I could not take the original center beam out because it holds the weight of the roof. I will shift the weight of the roof to a new wall later and then remove the old center beam.

Joining the first two slabs to create a 4"x10" beam.

In these two photos you can see the new beam being built. It runs 32 feet and perpendicular to the joists.

Top and bottom views of the joists.

Part of the house had a rough cut 1" sub-floor set on a diagonal from the joists. A strong floor but because of some bug damage and a 24" center on the joists, I chose to rip out and replace this whole section. The photo on the right shows a 20" wide slab of pine.

The goal of laying in a new floor when you are replacing all the plates, headers, and joists is to keep it flat and level. You are creating a floating plain in space. A couple times I felt I was going crazy as I chased myself from corner to corner moving everything 1/4" this way or that. In the end, I excepted a 32' x 26' floor with a 1/2" tolerence from one end to the other. You can not see or feel it, so it must be flat and level, right?

Title Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24