If you need to catch up…
Now, where were we?
Right… So your husband (with the help of a couple of friends) will remove the sliding glass doors and find wood that the sub-floor has wood-rot from water damage that is old (as in, must have been like that before we bought the house). When your husband sees that the sub-floor has rot, he will take a deep breath and begin to figure out how he can repair this without knocking down the whole dang house and starting over. (Seriously, this crossed my mind more than once)
Once he takes a deep breath, he will set forth is fixing the problem. He will get his trusty jigsaw and cut out as much of the damaged floor as he can. This is difficult because the panel of sub-floor that has been damaged extends under both the wall between the dining room and kitchen and the EXTERIOR wall of the house. Ugh! But, he is a man of great focus and he gets the job done!
(You’ve got to love the toolbox in this pic, I had to leave it in the shot. It is NOT Vince’s toolbox, it is Andrew’s… he’s been busy “helping”.)
The darling husband will measure it out and calculate where to place extra supports to hold the sub-floor patch. His repair will look as good as new and fit like a glove!
(Just a quick note, this board was then removed and replaced with another piece of plywood that matched the existing floor a lot better and fit even better. I did mention that my husband is an engineer, right? That means he’s ot happy until it is perfect. I just didn’t get to grab a pic of the updated fix since the floor started going down right after that.)
Once the floor was patched it was time for the new doors. Neither of our vehicles were big enough to haul the doors so Rich (neighbor-pastor) borrowed a truck from one of the other church members for us to use. Once the truck was here Vince took a ride with Adam (our tech-guy) to Lowe’s to buy the new doors. Unfortunately the bed of the borrowed truck was also not big enough to haul the doors, so Vince needed to rent the truck from Lowe’s. Except that he wasn’t driving his car and they asked for HIS insurance card… so they returned home. Adam ad to get back to work. Vince returned to Lowe’s in his car with his insurance card and (finally) was able to bring the doors home. Before the door could be installed Vince committed to repairing the *ahem* not quality *ahem* job that was originally done. He had to remove two planks of the deck, since it was built about a 1/2 inch HIGHER than the doorway and it was right up against the house, therefore causing water to flow into the house instead of away. Vince also added weather-proofing around the opening… yup added as in “it was never there to start with“. After that was all done he (with Rich’s help) installed the door. And not a moment too soon, because it started raining that night!
The doors are pretty. Such a great improvement over what was there (with the added bonus that it has a screen door that fits and opens and closes with EASE).
(Not a great pic, but remember, it started raining)
Now that the doors were in the floors could start going down.
(more in the next part)
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