Step 4 - The Floor Has to Go

Because the floor had a horrendous dip in it, we had three options: 1) jack the floor up from the basement until it was level, and scrape off the vinyl flooring lay tile 2) use self-leveling cement to fill the dip, then scrape the surrounding vinyl or, 3) rip everything out and start from scratch.

Option 1 seemed to be the most appealing. I began to scrape and discovered another layer of flooring, glued to the subfloor:

This gave me pause, since ripping up even this little patch had taken hours. The floor was shaky. The more I read about tile, the more I discovered that the substrate (surface upon which the tile is installed) had to be especially sturdy. I really wanted to install travertine, a natural stone, which is even more fragile than ceramic tile and required even a sturdier subfloor. Also, it occurred to me that some sort of structural defect was causing the dip, and it must be dealt with. I cringed as a realized the only option was option 3, ripping everything out and starting from scratch.
I decided to use a circular saw to cut the floor into slabs, and then pry the slabs off the joists. I first drilled pilot holes from the basement so that I wouldn't hit a floor joist with the saw. I then cut the slabs and attempted to pry them off the joists. However, the nails were huge, and the planks were not coming up easily, if at all.

To work around this, used a floor jack in the basement and a 4x4 post to jack the planks up off the joists. It was hard work. Three days, and a lot of blood and sweat later:

Note, you can actually see the dip in this picture on the fourth joist from the bottom of the picture.

After that, I wanted to make sure that these joists were not going to flex at all under the weight of the travertine I planned to install. I bought 12' long 2x6s to attach to and strengthen the existing joitss (called sistering, or buddy studding). I used 3/8" diameter bolts on either side of the joist, as well as 6 3 1/2" length decking screws, and liquid nails adhesive to attach the 'sisters' to the existing joists.

This also had the advantage of creating a perfectly level and flat surface for my new subfloor.

Incidentally, I found out that the dip was caused by a joist which had cracked, and the crack hidden with paint. As it turned out, the joist was cracked almost all the way through, and it was the subfloor that held the joist up, instead of vice versa.

I then installed 3/4" CDX plywood on top of the joists:

Step 3 - Replacing the Back Door

The moulding around the back door was curiously stubborn and would not come off. After some investigation, I determined it was because it was being used as a door latch! Good thing no one ever tried to kick that back door in! So, before we could proceed any further, it became evident that we were going to have to replace the back door. One little hitch:

This behemoth 240v air conditioner was installed in the door jamb, and suspended by steel cables attached to the exterior of the house. Further investigation would reveal that in the formstoning of the back of the house, it in effect cemented in the air conditioner. I used a hammer to smash away the cement holding it in but was still not sure how my waife girlfriend and I would manage to get this thing down without killing ourselves. Fortunately my friend Carl stopped by, and gave us a third hand to lift this thing down from overhead. I put the air conditioner on Craigslist, and it too was gone that same day. Now I had a gaping hole in the back of my house.
Installing the new door was tricky too. Normally you just put screws through the jamb into the frame of the house. However, the frame here is brick. I purchased special concrete screws from Home Depot, which require that a pilot hole be drilled first. Some said the trick was to drill into the mortar since it's softer, but my house was so old, it just crumbled, so I was going to have to drill directly into the brick. I bought a special masonry bit from Home Depot and attempted to drill the holes for the door frame. It was extremely slow going, and I went through several bits. It took about 5 hours to get 5 screws in. I found out in a later project that I should have rented or purchased a hammer drill, which is a drill especially created for drilling into masonry or concrete, and uses a percussive action to crush the brick as it drills. (I later bought a hammer drill and added three more screws, each hole took about 5 minutes... Lesson learned)

Twelve hours after I began this endeavor, the door was in, though I still had a gap above the door where a custom transom window would later go.

Step 2 - Demolition

We began scraping away the "tile" which lifted off easier in some places than others. Much to our surprise the paint was applied to some sort of coating on the plaster. We're still not sure what the coating was, but it also came off with a spackle blade, so we scraped that off too. Eventually, however, we realized that the brown adhesive was not coming off, and it did not respond well to sanding (not that we'd want to be breathing that dust in anyway). Though not sure what to do at that moment, we eventually decided to drywall over the wall.


The cabinets came out a lot easier than one might think. Just a few screws. Found someone on Craigslist to take them that very day. A lot easier than hauling them off to the dump, and nice to know that someone else will get some use out of them.

Step 1 - Appraisal and Planning

This is what I started with. Linoleum floor with a nasty dip. Generic cabinets. Highlighter yellow paint abutting faux-tile--a plastic laminate printed to look like tile, and then glued directly to the plaster with construction adhesive. A decades old range, no dishwasher. A drop ceiling. And that horrible plastic ceiling fan, the only source of light for the kitchen.

My girlfriend Claire took measurements and devised three plans for the kitchen. Ultimately, we decided to keep the positioning of the cabinets the same, and add a large center island with breakfast bar.

One problem was that the cabinet wall was not flat. Though not immediately evident from the above photograph, the cabinet wall juts inward 9" at the range. We planned to frame out a new wall, such that it would be completely flush and preserve the aesthetic appeal of a flat wall of cabinets.

As for the floor, the plan was for ceramic tile or natural stone on the floor, which posed a dilemma because there was about a 1" dip in the floor just in front of the range, and tile requires a completely flat surface. We thought we'd simply "jack it up" and we'd be good to go, but as it turned out, it was far from being that simple.

Thus our plan was:
-Remove the drop ceiling
-Remove old cabinets, frame out and new wall and cover with drywall.
-Jack up floor, cover with tile.
-Remove fake tile paper and repaint walls.
-Purchase refrigerator and dishwasher, replace range.

If only it were that easy...