Is Remodeling Your House the Key to Not Developing Alzheimer's?

So now that we have cleared the kitchen floor, it's time to build on top of it again. When he's not melting lead, Isaac has been learning how to make sure your floor is level.

The first thing to do is to tie a piece of string tight across the floor at one side, making it the height you want the subfloor to sit on. In our case, this is the same height as the floor joists Troy put in on the newly poured concrete on the west side.

Here is the string on the south end of the kitchen:

Barely above the floorboards.

Here it is on the north end:

About 1.5" above the floor. This is right in front of the bathroom door. I only had to trip on it twice before it was mapped in my brain and I started automatically stepping over it. It's occurred to me that having your house in constantly new arrangements of disarray is very good for your brain. You're repeatedly being presented with new challenges and having to relearn things you thought you knew. I think this is even better than crossword puzzles (or dare I say, even knitting?!) for staving off Alzheimer's. Troy and I should do well in old age...

Anyway, back to the kitchen. After you have the master string in place, you put up new pieces of string perpendicular to the first over each floor joist in turn and fill in the gap with an appropriately sized shim.

Make sure you have a lot of shims in various heights.

Isaac made many shims from 1/16" to 1-1/4" by 1/16" increments.

They are then glued into place on top of the floor joists (which are under the floor boards, of course).

When the subfloor goes in, it will sit on the shims, still be supported by the floor joists, but be level.

Isaac has been getting quite a number of them done during the days and Troy does one or two in the evening.

It will be so exciting to have the subfloor down and have one continuous floor surface. It almost boggles my mind that that may happen soon. Small steps and milestones...I relish them all!