Hey all,

  I just thought I would share this one with you all... I thought it was funny but I got nervous after a while... When Marie and I found out we were expecting a new child in March, we decided to move my office downstairs and put in a new hardwood floor in the ex-office upstairs and decorate for the baby. So we picked up some nice flooring and I started to remove the vinyl tile that was all over the floor... here is where the stuff begins.

  When I moved in, my neighbor, who has lived on the street since 1979, said that I was the third owner, and the first owner built the house and had a handicapped child. He told me that one of the closets in the master bedroom was once an elevator (confirmed later on...I found the base stiff there under the floor in the basement!!!) and the child used the master bedroom, and my office was a second large bathroom built for the child (which explains why there is a remnant of an archway entrance to the master bedroom and the thermostat control is beside it... all the way across the room from the door. Fast forward to 2 months ago... I removed the vinyl tile and noticed a few soft spots in the floor... uh oh.

  After examining the subfloor properly, I found out that a 1/4" sheet of plywood was screwed onto the old floor. Not too bad at this point.

I removed the 1/4" ply and lo and behold, all the holes for all the fixtures are there... still open... which explains why the floor had softspots... 1/4" ply is too thin. So... since the original ply was rough and still had traces of tile cement and some minor water damage, and also was not made up of complete sheets of ply but more recycled small pieces (cheap 1st owner I guess... neighbor said so... the guy built his house too), I decided to give the hardwood a nice solid base and remove all the old subfloor. So far, not so bad... just a lot of work. So I was down to the beams and some insulation (since 40% of the room sticks out in front of the house and covers the outside front entrance.

Fast forward to this Friday... I started laying the new subfloor near the entrance of the room and then decided that, before I cover the insulated part up, I would take a look under the insulation before... OK... cue the Jaws theme music now...

  As soon as I lifted the insulation, I felt a very cold draft. Hmm... wtf... under the insulation was some aluminum paper which was torn in a few places, and the air was coming though there. I then removed that paper and felt a semi-hard but somewhat humid surface... no... it couldn't be... aw mess.

YES people... the only thing between the insulation and the space covered by the soffits outside... was SHEETROCK! Bare, 30-years-old, humid, sagging sheetrock!!! I also found a shitload of ladybugs (they obviously came through the cracks...). At that point, I knew I had no choice. I had to rip off the old soffits outside, remove the sheetrock (mold and all...) and rebuild and reinsulate.

  I had bought 2 extra sheets of 3/4" super-aspenite ply (costs a lot... anti-mold, anti-moisture... pretty much anti-everything) so I cut them up to make panels to block the holes where the sheetrock was, after removing all the nails and staples. It was quite a shock to stand in my future baby's room and see outside.  

  Well, 2 days later, I installed the new ply, sprayfoamed all the cracks, covered it all with some thick plastic, and put in new soffits. On the inside, I reinforced all the beams, sprayfoamed again but from the inside, and will just have to put in some aluminum paper on the inside and reinstall some insulation. Quite a weekend...

  On a good note, it seems that by doing all this, I seem to have eliminated 50% of the drafts coming from some outlets in the house. BONUS! But a 500$ job ended up costing 1500$. Oh well... there goes the money for a second pin.   Well at least I am picking up one Thursday!

Here is what it looked like before from the inside...

... and from the outside (I had a couple of sheets installed on the right)

and from the inside, all reinforced and sealed. Now, time to install a subfloor and I am nearly done...    I love my house, but these things happen with an older house. I did check the building codes from 1978, and believe it or not, the use of sheetrock in this way was accepted!!!!

Lady bugs are supposed to be good luck! So says the wife.

Sparky man you really have some luck  
The only problem is I have to do the same move my computer room to the basement when I am done and rebuild a new child room.
My luck is similar to yours so I am tryimg to figure out what luck i will have.

Well on a plus note, awsome that you can do all the work yourself, I'd be scrwed and would have to hire someone.

for a minute there I thought you were going to tell us you found the elevator to bring pinballs upstairs !  

Quoted from Mrhide

for a minute there I thought you were going to tell us you found the elevator to bring pinballs upstairs !  

That would be so cool

Quoted from Mrhide

for a minute there I thought you were going to tell us you found the elevator to bring pinballs upstairs !  

Actually, I did... but just the base is left. Anyhow, problem is that if I rewire it to make it work and add the platform and framing to it, it would smash through my downstairs bathroom and punch through my bedroom closet upstairs. Not good.

Quoted from Vengeance

Well on a plus note, awsome that you can do all the work yourself, I'd be scrwed and would have to hire someone.

Don't knock yourself and put me on a pedestal... all I did was rip off stuff and screw in some wood panels. A lot of work, but not much to figure out.

Yep, I've found stuff like that during the renovations on my house. Mine is a lot older than yours, but it's amazing what people think was a good idea at one time or another.