Kitchen Floor

Kitchen Floor Problems (Nov. 14, 2016)

So after removing the tile floor in the kitchen we discovered a few problems.  The kitchen floor has several different levels and is very unlevel. The floor is much worse than it looks in these pictures.  This is part of the original house.  The sub-floor boards run in two different directions with the top of a cement wall in middle that has been patched on top with plaster to try and bring it to the level of the floor.   The wall is part of a cold storage room which is under the right hand side of the floor.  It is about 10 x 10 and is accessed by a floor hatch.  You can see the hatch next to the right side doorway.  It still has brown tile on top of it.  We want to put cupboards all along that wall so we want to move it to the wall on the right side.
   

Also when the cold storage room hatch was put in, floor joists were cut and not supported correctly.  So the only thing to do to fix the multitude of problems was to pull up more floor and to replace the joists and correctly hang them.

So off they came.  Don't you love the 2x4 support for the sawed off joists?  And yes that ladder is how you access it.  My grandmother had a ladder like this into her cold storage room when I was little.  Her room was dirt walled and floored.  It used to scare me to death to go down it.  Later, proper stairs were put into hers but it still wasn't my favorite place to go.  I don't know if this room was originally dirt or was added as an afterthought by subsequent owners.  

Still have a little left to go and then when this half is done we will expose the left hand side and see what needs to be done to level it.  This is all the basement we have.  Can't wait to use it for long term food storage.  I tell Perry it is our bomb shelter!!  When we get it all in shape, Perry will build me lots of shelves and a several hundred pounds of wheat will go down there along with other food storage items.  

*****After this trip we haven't been down to do anything except once to  check that the furnaces were doing their job to keep things from freezing.  All was well.  Now that the holidays are over we plan on going down this week to keep working on this floor.  I have high hopes that soon we can start some framing and building instead of tearing things out.   😏