This old shack has a lot of problems and challenges as well as hidden defects. One was that the entire back third of the house has a floor that is about 2.5″ lower than the front of the house.
That’s because the front of the house is the original house and the back was some sort of porch that later got covered in. This is evident, as i mentioned before, by a plywood wall, complete with tar paper, under the drywall between the two section and the two being connected only by a single 30″ door frame (without door).
So. We come to the point in the story where I raise that floor. This has several benefits. First, it eliminates the trip hazard between the front and rear sections of the house. Second, it creates a secondary barrier on the floor to block drafts and cold seeping from the carport below.
The back doors and deck height were planned ahead with this new floor height in mind.
To accomplish this, I bought a bunch of 2×3 pine boards and ripped them on my table saw to bring the new floor height up to the same height as the front of the house. A layer of new OSB on top of that and we have a tight floor. Fastened with nails and glue on both sides of the trimmed 2×3 so there won’t be any future squeaks.
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laminate ‘wood’ going on top?
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No. Just going to toss a rug over the OSB and call it a day.
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This looks a lot like my front porch project. The wood is old and rotted in places as it is a formerly outside porch that was enclosed, probably without replacing the wood underneath. Looks like it was cut out along the edges at some point, and replaced with cheap plywood in a one foot strip, but then covered in OSB and vinyl flooring. I am going to gut the floor, reinforce/repair the area by the front door where it is sagging a bit, and redo the whole thing before covering with some sort of proper flooring. Probably fake hardwood since I’m not 100% sure that the enclosure won’t leak again, but I really don’t want to tear down all the surrounding windows, etc that are currently enclosing it. At some point I am not sure where “make it nice” turns into “it’s 110 years old, walk away”.
Of course, as mentioned before, I also need to gut the upstairs bathroom and downstairs kitchen, redo all the piping and wiring, before replacing the upstairs bathroom, followed by replacing the kitchen. Figured out that I have to do them together as the piping for the BR runs down the walls for the kitchen. Easier I suspect to have the kitchen walls missing when we redo all that piping and drainage.
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I recommend ripping out all of the drywall that encloses your suspect plumbing. This will greatly improve your access and visibility and ensure you find the real problem. It also minimizes mess since you do all of your demo up front. Then you can take your time with new drywall. If your pipes are run in cold zones, you can take this opportunity to run flexible PEX through interior walls.
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Sounds like good advice. I worry about the lack of shower once I rip everything out since I only have one shower/tub. Right now I have iron pipe and galvanized in there so it will definitely be a complete upgrade. If I worked faster…
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Oh yeah, forgot to mention that additionally the piping runs through the kitchen wall, the one with 2/3 of my cabinets and my stove. So that has to come out. And under the bathroom floor to get to the sink, which is in the kitchen ceiling. Near as I can tell it’s gut the bathroom and kitchen at the same time, rebuild the bathroom as quickly as possible, and then live on takeout and microwave as I get the kitchen done. I think I may start on the front porch just for that reason. 😊
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Ive been doing microwave and takeout for 2 years. Go get a grill and you will be fine.
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