We Made the Hole Bigger (And Then Fixed It)

Описание: The interior revitalization continues.

Over two years ago, we cleaned out the living room to reveal a beautiful, yet damaged wooden floor. We’ve been walking and working on this floor for just as long, and fell in love with its soft color and countless scratches. But it was also tilted, causing things to roll and the floor to feel uneven. Underneath, the huge beams were spongy and rotted from the high moisture caused by a few decades of Siporex lining the basement. And, don’t forget the giant hole.

So for our last project of 2025, we decided to finally fix the floor, and get the living room ready to be completed.

This was a super fun undertaking.

The boards came out relatively easily, with the help of about ten homemade wedges and a sledge hammer. The boards were removed, cleaned and stained with our fungicide. With each board we removed, more and more of the beautiful basement underneath was revealed. And with each board, the room became lighter and less and less like a house, and more like an archeological site. It felt like working in a covered Roman temple.

Then was the dig.

Under the living room floor, we had this strange patch of dirt. We had wanted to dig it out simply because it brought moisture issues into the house, but then we thought, “hey, why not a root cellar?” However, to our great surprise, there was a weird concrete slab about 40-centimeters down that did not belong there. It was the day after Halloween, so we had lots of theories, largely surrounding a burial site. We debated long and hard about it, and decided that if there was a secret under there, it hasn’t hurt anyone yet, so it's best to leave it in the ground. We have made pretty good friends with the ghosts in our house, this seemed like a good way to piss them off. Maybe in the future, we will get some ground penetrating radar, and get ourselves some answers. But for now, any secret buried under the house will remain there, because we poured about 1-cubic meter of gravel on top of it and sealed it back in with boards.

The beam and board work itself was not so complicated, but was time consuming, as everything is on this project. Luckily, the rot damage was only surface level, and did not affect any of the cores. But this did bring their sizing down slightly, so we added back a beam to make up the difference. We bought these on Facebook Marketplace, our favorite store, from someone selling them as firewood. They came off an old barn, and we just love them.

The sub-flooring took the longest. We decided to mimic the ceiling style, and two a two level system, to add stability and help seal any cracks, preventing wind from coming up from the basement. This took forever, because each board needed to be individually spaced to the board it held, and each notch needed to be carved differently to account for the natural fall in the beams. We worked largely in the dark and in the cold, but it was worth it.

Finally, the boards were sat on-top the sub-floor and nailed it. Bada bing bada boom.

The day we finally finished this, Luka threw himself onto the floor and just laid there, a smile on his face. Not only is the last of the sub-flooring done, we are going into 2026 ready for the living room to be finished. We couldn’t be happier.

We only have two thank you’s on this project: Ladi and Kati.

Ladi stepped in a few times for Alyson when we had guests and she couldn’t come up. But he is basically an owner himself at this point. But we will always thank him.

Kati for keeping us fed and hydrated. She has never once been shown on camera, but she really helps keep us going in the background.

Hvala vi, Kati in Ladi!

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - 00:49 Introduction
00:50 - 03:37 Demolition
03:38 - 05:53 Excavation
05:54 - 08:15 Support Replacement
08:16 - 10:06 Rot Removal
10:07 - 14:38 Sub-Flooring Install
14:39 - 17:46 Finished Floor Board Install
17:47 Final Reveal & Credits