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.

More floors

I cut, glued, and screwed down the OSB that I already had upstairs, so now when I get to the top of the stairs I actually have something to stand on.  Then I had to move more up from the garage, which was more of a pain than the last time since there was about a foot of snow on the ground.

For the bathroom I decided to use pressure treated plywood instead of the OSB because of all that water damage from before.  It cost more and was heavier, but hopefully it means I won't have to replace it for a long time.  When I put it down, I only put a few screws in each since I'll have to pull it back up for doing plumbing.

And it's all done

Now to clean up and put down the paint lines for reference

Brackets brackets brackets

I tried putting the notched cross-joist in again, and it cracked in the same way, for the 3rd time.  So I'm just going to glue it tomorrow and be done with it.  To fill the gaps in the notching in the upper parts of the joists I shimmed it.  It's amazing how stable the joists are now, far more than in the front room with the ceiling attached to the bottom.  I also put the brackets on each of the joints on opposite corners like my friend said to

Rolling the joists

All the joists are hung, it's surprising how impossible they are to walk across like this because of how it resonates since there is no ceiling attached to the bottom and nothing on top.

This is how I did around the toilet, I left more space than I needed to so it's easy to work in if I need to, plus it shouldn't be hard to add some blocking for support if its needed.

I talked to my civil engineer friend, and he said I should add a cross-joist under where the one bedroom wall is, since it might end up being load bearing when there is a lot of snow on the roof.  To do this, I'm running a 2x8 perpendicular to the joists, with each notched out so they fit together, and then using brackets to tie it all together.  Here's the markings for the notches

While I was cutting the notches, I ended up cutting through one of the nails in the double 2x8, so that's cool looking

After seeing the state of the subfloor in the bathroom from all the water, I decided I want to be able to replace it down the road easily.  So instead of putting the bottom plate for the wall on top of the sub floor like normal, I'm putting it directly on the joists.  I decided to put it in now so can more easily walk across the joists (it was surprising how much it helped).  This picture also shows the notching.

I notched the perpendicular 2x8 as well, here's what it looked like

 
Then tried to put it in, but the wood split on the end

Since I had the extra wood I decided to give it another shot, and loosen up some of the notches in the joists so I wouldn't need to hammer so much.  And it happened again, so at this point I was done for the night.