Remember I had to have the main beam replaced? Well when I did it ended up making the back bedroom floor slope pretty badly. I did some research on leveling floors and Mark and I decided to try tackling it ourselves. I bought a laser level to ensure that we got it as close to level as possible. Putting the level in the high corner we marked all the walls and then transferred the marks downwards two inches to compensate for the level height. It ended up sloping both from north to south and west to east by about an inch and a half.

Next we used strings and tapes to measure out a fan grid pattern from the North east corner to the center of the room. Using these measurements we cut beveled strips of wood to use as a sub-frame for half inch plywood. After laying out the fan pattern and laying sheets of ply down, we used a six foot level (bought at home depot…expensive!)
to check our measurements. After a few small adjustments we screwed the sub frame directly to the wooden floor. Then the plywood was secured to the sub frame, again with screws. Using a grinder I feathered out the plywood as much as possible where it met the regular flooring but was not at all happy with the results.

Steve E. to the rescue…. I have known Steve for many years. Back to the days of playing with 286 computers and dungeons and dragons. Steve works at a paint-chemical-coatings shop. One of the products that they make is a self leveling floor material. When tile and carpenters have depressions in a floor they pour this thick liquid into it. It self levels while it is in liquid form but hardens like concrete in about six hours. I poured that stuff into the depression and left for the night. The next day I used a grinder to grind it down smooth and was much happier with the results.

We used the same methodology to level the floor in the living room, next to the kitchen wall, where Mark had cut a hole in the floor to gain access to the crawlspace. (I had called him bad names for that one) It worked like a charm.

My next target was the fireplace hearth. Since the original hearth was flush with the wooden floor and the new fireplace was much higher, I needed to build it up and make it more in line with the newer room appearance. I first cut two layers of cement board for the base height change. Using a cement drill bit I drilled several holes through the cement board into the original concrete hearth. Using tap cons I fastened the boards in place. Next I made a form about two inches above the boards and screwed them directly to the wooden floor. I used high strength cement to fill the form and left it to harden.

A few days later I had gone to Home Depot and picked out tile to finish off the hearth. I also purchased tile adhesive, grout, a tile cutter (piece of crap that didn’t work), a notched trowel, grout sealer, a foam float, and a couple of sponges. After laying out the tile in the pattern I liked I tried using the tile cutter to score and break the tile to size. What a pain. It would barely score the tile and the tile broke in pieces every time. I even tried scoring over and over with the same results. (And yes I read the damn directions!) Well I went back to Home Depot to ask what I was doing wrong to find that the score/break cutters are designed for a specific type of tile and won’t work on the tile I had purchased. Grrrr.
I ended up paying them $20 to cut the tiles the sizes I wanted.

Once I was happy with the dry fitting I cleaned the concrete “step” with acetone in preparation for the tile adhesive. Using the notched trowel I spread the adhesive on the top and sides of the step. Once set in place I tapped each tile to set it in place and let it cure for three days. After it had cured I went back and grouted/sealed it. It looks quite nice.

The kitchen was next. I had already torn out the old cabinets in preparation for the new drywall. After removing the floor covering I had found several soft spots in the floor. (Remember the flood from Mr. Mark H.?) Well I tore out the floor, and then the sub floor.
Once the sub floor came off I was looking at the ground between the two by twelve floor beams.