Bedroom Renovation Part 2: This time it's the kitchen!

[housecrazy sarah]

4300 screws? I know not to mess with you!!!
Great work you are doing!

[shazapple]

Just a little update. We haven't had much progress since weekends are being eaten up by other things. The floor in the pantry was pulled up and we found newspaper as one of the underlays.

One of the old floors, delightful.

IMG_1521 (Small).JPG (69.02 KiB) Viewed 571 times

The newspaper was dated October 25, 1952. It was in remarkably good condition, except a spot where there was water damage. I managed to save a good portion of them. Someday I will go through them and snap photos of the interesting articles.

IMG_1522 (Small).JPG (38 KiB) Viewed 572 times

[nowwhat?]

Awesome about the newspapers, '52 was the year I was born. All I've found so far in this old house was chicken feed bags in the ceiling...lol.

[DIY@home]

3/4" tongue and groove pine board subfloor
3/4" tongue and groove pine board floor
some sort of separating layer that looks like dryer lint
faux wood sheet flooring (over real wood, go figure)
kraft paper
carpet-like sheet flooring
white sheet flooring complete with glitter lines
1/4" plywood with about a thousand nails
1/4" plywood with barely 4 nails per sheet
current vinyl floor layer

All I can say is !

and THAT's why they call it home "improvement"

[shazapple]

It has been a while since an update, probably because not much has happened! Finally this weekend we managed to finish up the drywall and box in the corner.

IMG_1551 (Small).JPG (52.25 KiB) Viewed 454 times

IMG_1552 (Small).JPG (48.74 KiB) Viewed 453 times

I had planned on making the box smaller when it got to counter top level and making shelves for cookbooks, but that was too difficult. Instead, I will build a box with shelves and set it into the hole.

IMG_1553 (Small).JPG (22.56 KiB) Viewed 453 times

[farmermiller]

Under my oak hardwood floor in my kitchen i found newspapers from 1939,Also under the pine floor under the oak hardwood.Was newspapers from 1903.

[PowerMuffin]

It is coming along very well I'd say. Hurry up - I want to see more. I love all the different flooring patterns.
Diane

[shazapple]

The father in law and I spent all day putting down ditra and tile. The ditra went down fairly easy, but requires a lot more mortar on top to fill the waffle pattern.

IMG_1554 (Small).JPG (48.88 KiB) Viewed 354 times

It looks a bit green in this picture but it looks more like the above picture in real life.

IMG_1555 (Small).JPG (44.59 KiB) Viewed 353 times

Up until now we've had use of the pantry, but now our entire kitchen is in or living room and is a bit crazy! Also, we don't have access to our back door, and our front door has been blocked by snow falling off the roof. I guess we aren't going anywhere for a while (unless I crawl out the window!)

IMG_1556 (Small).JPG (29.86 KiB) Viewed 353 times

[Texas_Ranger]

I wonder if this is going to last! At the university (Vienna) they completely redid the hallways a few years ago. Originally they had vaulted brick ceilings with sand on top, then concrete and terrazzo tile set directly into the mud bed. During the renovation they removed most of the sand and installed a chipboard false floor over concreted in order to run wiring and pipes. Then they used some kind of membrane to tile over the chipboard. Only months later the grout started to crack and tiles were coming loose.

[shazapple]

It better last, it wasn't cheap stuff and I don't plan on doing this again! I did a lot of research online and the longevity of tile is directly related to the soundness of the structure below. The 3/4" t&g wasn't dimensionally stable, so the 3/4" plywood took care of that and added the necessary thickness (most tiling people seem to recommend 1.25" thick floor, so I am set). The idea behind this ditra stuff is to mimic the old school mortar bed in the sense that it disconnects the tile from any of the floor movement. It sounds like the problem with the university is that they didn't have a good subfloor (chipboard is crap).