Pigeon Point Project A 1907 Craftsman, rebuilt · 2005–2009

Floor is UP

May 9, 2005 · Nick · 7 comments

As you can see from the Project Cam, I got the rest of the fir floor pulled up on Sunday. Oh, do I ache today. No more kneeling for me for a couple of weeks.

Many thanks to my friend Jon, who came over and helped for several hours on Sunday. Jon was impressed with the floor boards, saying “You know, when you get that box of oak flooring from Home Depot, you get excited whenever you find a 4 foot long stick.” Jon said this as we were stacking planks of 18’ long old-growth fir decking. You know, he’s right. This is going to be one cool floor when it goes back down.

7 Comments

  1. Jocelyn·May 9, 2005

    I have 2 words for you: knee pads (I hope you’re using ‘em) We swear by them.

  2. Nick·May 9, 2005

    Oh, I have knee pads, and I used them. Do they make pads for my lower back?

  3. Scott·May 17, 2005

    Nick,

    What is your plan for restoring your floor? Are you taking up your fir flooring to build a new subfloor? I’ve got fir upstairs myself and I’m trying to decide whether to do the same thing.

    SD

  4. Nick·May 17, 2005

    Hey Scott,

    We pulled up the fir primarily to get a radiant floor installed beneath it. The subfloor is original and requires a few repairs, but not enough to merit replacing outright. The radiant system consists of 1/2” plywood panels with grooves in them for the tubing, and this will be screwed to the existing subfloor. The fir will go back on top of this. Make sense?

    Upstairs we have fir also, but there’s no subfloor. The fir finish floor lies directly on top of the floor joists. You might want to check to see if this is how yours was done.

  5. Scott·May 17, 2005

    Actually I looked at it last night and it looks like my flooring is nailed directly to the joists as well. Because the flooring has warped and actually flexes a little when stepped on in a few places, I’m thinking I should probably take it up and put a subfloor in before putting it back down. Can you give me a brief description of how you were most successful at getting your planks up without damaging them?

    Thanks,

    SD

  6. Nick·May 17, 2005

    How’s this, Scott?

    http://4renovators.com/blogs/pigeonpointproject/archive/2005/05/07/404.aspx

    Basically, we were able to pull the nails and remove each board. This wouldn’t have worked if the nails didn’t have exposed heads…

  7. Scott·May 18, 2005

    Thanks Nick,

    My boards upstairs are all stub nailed but the ones downstairs are top nailed. I should be able to nip those out when I get to them.

    SD