Raising the Floor

A key part of the "modernization" element of the remodel was to raise the floor in the living room.  That sunken floor just always gave me a sinking feeling.

 Before we begin.  Look closely and you will notice that the electrical outlets have not been raised yet, and we had not begun the work on the exposed beams.

 Here it is all framed up, except for the spacers in the center.

The outlets have been raised and the brackets are on the beams.

And there is that priceless box fan.  Oh yes, and Uncle Peter's ladder, which also was a great help.

 All ready for the 3/4" plywood sheathing.

 A close up look at the work.  Pursuant to the engineered design (required for a building permit) we first laid down pressure-treated redwood 2x4s and then overlaid them with regular 2x4s and set the 2x6s on them to bring the floor to the correct height to interface with the existing floor.  So if any of you need a tool for shooting nails into concrete, I got it.  That was one of the fun days, loading the nail, then the .22 caliber shell and pulling the trigger.  We made sure we had it nailed down good and tight.

 The only really tricky part was negotiating this angle, and that was not a problem at all.  We decided for design and traffic reasons to leave this as it is, and now we are really glad we did.

 Sheathing going on.  The room is 16' 8" wide, so there we had to put in an 8" strip somewhere.  After considering the options, we put it right down the center of the floor where it would have maximum support.

And yes, there are a lot of screws in this floor.  It will not move or squeak.  It will be carpeted.

 The finished product.  Doesn't it look nice?

And look at this!  This is all that is left over from the sheets of plywood I bought.

Now that is cutting it close. (my apologies, but I couldn't help myself)