Today we started the process of leveling the floors. As in many old buildings, the existing floors are slightly wavy, so when doing this degree of renovations it's usually a good idea to make the floors level. Because the original floor boards appear to have a lot of character, we're hoping to re-use them. That's going to cause more work, as we'll have to carefully remove them, take out all the nails, and then at the very end of the project, put the boards back down and refinish them. But re-using the boards will allow us to save wood and should hopefully retain some of the character of the old boards.
The process of leveling the floors begins with clearing the floor of everything, then removing the old boards one by one. Once the boards are removed, the floor joists will be exposed and we'll be able to establish the level using strings and a small water-level. (The danger of open joists is that one must be careful to walk only on the joists otherwise you could risk putting a foot through the neighbor's ceiling!) The string over each floor joist shows the distance that it's off from level, so that distance is filled with a strip of wood. Each piece has to be custom cut, so it's a slow and tedious process. Once all of the strips are in, we can start fastening sheets of plywood down for a sub-floor. That sub-floor is safe to walk on and ultimately will have the finish floor boards nailed to it. Here, I'd like to ultimately install a 2nd layer of plywood but put a roll of sound absorptive material to help minimize the noise transmission from the floor.
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| Clearing and cleaning the floor of everything |
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| Removing the old carpet sub-floor boards to expose the original wood floors |
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| The original floor boards |
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| Montage of flat with original floor boards exposed |
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| The guys: Jimmy, M, and yours truly (from left to right) |
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| The first few floor boards out |
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| One can now see the rafters - and the neighbors' ceiling |
