Back to the ceiling

Now that the floor is finally done, it's time to go back to the ceiling.  I had to move everything...  Lots of open space now.

The drywall jack is very useful for bringing down the joists nicely.

Since the floor is level now, I decided to just measure to 8'1" on each side and put in a nail on each side to rest the joist on once I got it up.

I'm definitely glad I waited to do the ceiling until I had the floor to work from.  This is how level the joist was after the first try, and this took much less time than in the master bedroom.

And this is what the first one done looks like.

Finising up the floor

There's not much to say about the rest of this, it was pretty straightforward and went the same way as the first part of the room.  Just very time consuming.

I also decided it makes the most sense to put the 2nd floor subpanel in the master bedroom closet instead, and I'm going to be moving the main plumbing stack to the other side of that wall, so it doesn't interfere with the dining room below.  So that's why there is a section left out of the floor.

Leveling weirdness

So I couldn't use the screw 2x6s to the sides of the joists like I did before since they are too tall by about 1/4" with all the cross lumber, which means its time to pull out all that stuff

 
I decided after consulting my civil engineer friend that pulling out all the 2x4s and 1" thick stuff and then running the 2x6s over it with OSB blocks screwed onto the sides would be best.  It's a lot more work than just screwing 2x6s to the sides, but at least doesn't cost more since I had a ton of scrap OSB pieces that aren't really large enough to use for the floor.

In the hammering that I did with installing those, I made a mess downstairs in the kitchen doorway...

1940's composite joists

The only room left to level is the master bedroom, but to start on it I have to get all that other floor off the floor first.  I just threw it down behind the porch, it's interesting how much larger the pile seems in person.  I ended up making a post on Craigslist for "Free Firewood" thinking someone might use it as shop firewood.  Five people ended up contacting me about it, and none wanted it for firewood... They took most of it so it wasn't even a full trailer load to take to the dump, which was nice.

After pulling I up the subfloor, I was surprised by what I found.  It seems there were just 2x6s there originally which just held up the ceiling, but then they added a room and 2x6s aren't really enough for a floor.  So instead of replacing them, they just used some 1" thick lumber running across perpendicularly and then 2x4s on top of each of the 2x6s.  Everything was nailed together pretty well at least.