Time to hit the floor!

It was time to move on to getting the kitchen floor done so we could prep for the cabinets that were due to arrive from Kraftmaid at any time. Now the subfloor was sound, but the patching I had done created some seams that I wanted to cover. Also, knowing we were going to be putting carpet in the adjoining hallway (eventually to be replaced by hardwood), I wanted to bring the level of the finished kitchen floor up to about ¾”, so I decided to put down a layer of ¼” plywood on top of the subfloor.

The key with any added flooring layer is to make sure it’s attached firmly not only to the underlying joists, but also solidly anchored to the existing subfloor. For this task I took a bit of a “belt and suspenders” approach and used two types of fasteners: Flooring screws and 1″ wide crown staples.

Why both? Well…the flooring screws take a while to drive, but I made sure to place them every 6″ into the floor studs, and every 4″ along seams….and that took a while.

The nice part about the stapler is that it is REALLY fast. I drove a 1 ¼” 16 ga staple every couple of inches in the field between the joists, and even “stiched” the seams together with a bunch more staples.

The result? A rock solid joining job between the two flooring layers.

Now…that little “problem” I mentioned earlier…..Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce “the Dip”.

There was a 1/2″ dip in the floor, spanning about 28″ from where the front of the stove/cabinets were to sit and the wall. This dip was never really an issue in the old kitchen because A: It was covered by cabinets, and B: Linoleum doesn’t really care how flat the floor is….it’ll stick to anything.

Anyway, this needed to be dealt with before moving on,

The first step was to mark the lowest spots and scab in some extra ¼” ply to help fill the dip

And check again for level:

The last step for the day was to call in some reinforcements to prep the low area for the next days step: Self levelling concrete (kind of a misnomer, but we’ll get into that tomorrow.

Chantelle began priming the floor:

And then our resident Pro stepped I to show us how it’s done. My youngest daughter Hailey (3 yrs) showing her mom how it’s done:

And flying solo:

And the end result, left to dry over night:

Tomorrow we’ll be at the self levelling concrete. Thanks for looking everyone.

I almost forgot….the “Tool of the day”

The tool of the day was most definitely these:

These are the Igel knee pads from IRWIN. I’m 18 years old in my head, but my boddy begs to differ sometimes….especially when it comes to my knees. I got these pads because they seemed to be soft (the gel), but also because the blocky profile looked like it would be super stable and resist rolling over…I wasn’t dissapointed. The entire job felt like I was kneeling on a pillow, and the square profile was completely stable on the floor with zero tendency to want to roll over sideways. These are a solid buy.

Ryan