Thursday, September 2, 2010

A can of worms


At this point I was hoping to post my newly polished studio floor. No such luck.
Above is my not so newly polished floor sitting on the front porch.
It's not a fun story...


Muzza the floor guy came the other day to sand the floor (above is the before shot).


All looks ok but when you looked closely there was big areas of rot, especially in the old verandah boards over near the window.


We decided that the floor needed to be replaced. We had discussed it a while ago but I was hoping that when it was sanded it would be ok. No such luck.
Sooooo.... Lyn ripped up the boards, in fact, half the room's worth.
The old joists in the end part of the room weren't even attached to anything and some had rotted.


This is where it got nightmarish. You now the saying, "to open a can of worms"?
Well, how about "a room of worms"???
We discovered a leaky pipe and heaps of mushy soil. It gets worse...amongst the soil were colonies of worms. It was truly disgusting! We had to dig out a few wheelbarrows of soil and worms, put in brick supports, a new beam and joists (as you can see below).


Starting to take shape.


Site supervisor Molly keeping a close watch on things.

Yay! A new, level, solid floor - all in one day!!
$600 in materials and plenty of super sore muscles later we are much happier!

24 comments:

  1. Eww gross about the worms. But at least you have a nice new floor now :)

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  2. Oh Sarah, that's no fun (understatement of the year). We opened a similar can with the front porch at our old place, minus the worms though, they would have been a pleasant find. Yuck :(

    It looks great finished though :)

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  3. All in one *day* !!?? You're a machine! And what an awesome result ... what will you use to seal it?

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  4. Sarah, your renovation stories are amazing! Nothing's simple is it? But I do love how you and Lyndon just get on with it and get it done...and that floor looks great. Look forward to seeing the finished result once you've recovered from this part!

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  5. I agree with Kerry - you two just get on with it and get it done alright. Jason and I would've cried! Then fight! And we'd still have no floor. The floor looks great. You guys rock! xx

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  6. oh man.. makes you wonder what is lurking!!!
    The new floor looks great.

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  7. Oh my goodness Sarah, what a lot of work! How wonderful that you were able to get it all done in one day! I am sure that had that have happened to us we could have stretched the job into a few weekends worth of work. xx

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  8. oh sarah... i am so sorry to hear this story but thank goodness it has a happy ending... and thank goodness you found all of this and took care of it... and all in one day for $600 i am so impressed! xx pam

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  9. what a nasty find, did you manage to fix the rotting pipe as well? just as well you aren't in NSW or you'd have had white ants as well.
    Alls well that ends well, fingers Xed. k.

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  10. I've learned the hard way that there's no easy and simple renovation around here - every room is a 'room of worms' at my house! At least you know that it's done right now, and it would have been worse to spend the money to sand and polish your floors, only to have them fall apart later! They look fantastic already, you must be thrilled with how they turned out. K xx

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  11. Oh, Sarah! My goodness, renovating seems hard. I am vicariously 'enjoying' the experience with you. The results are impressive - keep it up! J x

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  12. Wow! Big job. And in one day? I'm impressed

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  13. Oh Sarah, you poor things - what a nightmare, but wow aren't you guys just amazing for not falling in a crying heap but instead rolling up your sleeves and just getting it sorted!!!! You have done a great job and the floor looks fantastic even without the stain. You must be happy now no doubt. ;-)

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  14. Oh thats poo! But it looks amazing so worth all the hard work :)

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  15. Oh wow, this is why we decided to build and not buy and renovate, had one too many of those incidents in our old house.
    At leas the worms create their own enviro cycle and eat anything nasty.
    Mekaela

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  16. Sarah Sarah Sarah! How are you? I'm finally back. Took long enough right?! ;)

    Looks like you've been keeping busy as well. I'm shocked that you were able to do all that floor work in 1 day. Amazing. Some people are just so good at home projects. I am not one of them. Props to you! Hope you have a great weekend. :)

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  17. Sarah, I know exactly what you've been through and sympathise completely! Still, it looks marvellous now and it's much better to find and fix the problem early than get everything in there and find you have underfloor problems.
    Lesley

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  18. Sarah, you really amaze me. What a nightmare, but it looks like you guys handled it like pros! I can't wait to see how everything turns out.

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  19. oh my gosh Sarah what a massive job that wasn't supposed to be a job! The new floor looks really great though, you must be feeling so pleased with it! Oh and I meant to say about my camera too, i use the canon 450D, I would really love a 5D but it's not in the budget at the moment. I mostly use the 50mm lens but also the 18mm-55mm, and for the Bruny shots I used a polarised lens, but i don't know if that actually did much! Are you looking for a new one? I'd go with the 5D if you can!

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  20. I am in awe of your tenacity. Floor rotten? Just dig it out and fix it up! You are renovator/s of the year! A-M xx

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  21. Oh Sarah what an absolute nightmare!! Nothing's ever simple when renovations are involved but once everything is looking beautiful and new you will be able to sit back and laugh about your 'worm saga'. I love how Molly is keeping a close eye on what is going on :) The end result look fab!

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  22. Oh my goodness Sarah! This happened to us in our laundry room when we first moved in, you have my empathy!! Looks fabulous now, you must be thrilled with the final results:) Yay to you both on such a great job!! ~ Tina x

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  23. Omg :( What an unpleasant surprise! eeewwwwww....
    But your new floor looks so great! :)

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  24. I can't believe you managed this in one day!!! I am in awe. You are my new renovation Goddess. I bow before you...

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