Raising The Floor And A New Front Door

Today is the day….it's all or nothing.  We are going to take the sliding doors out without knowing what we will find and hopefully we can raise the floor and get a new door in before nightfall.



Mike trying to get the first door out of the track.  Yeah right….it takes two of us and a crow bar to finally get it out.  The track was bowed and it gave us a delay:

Second door coming out…we hope, lol:

Man those are some heavy double paned glass doors.  Too bad we can't use them.  After the doors are removed Mike works on the frame:

That's out:)  Sadly the original metal frame from a previous door is also in place.  Mike works on that frame:

OK…doors and frames are out…time to take the tile up.  So far that was the easiest thing in this house to remove, lol.

This is it…there is no turning back.  Uh oh now we did it.  We are wide open and now we have to get closed up before the night:

We decided to make a wood floor for our time frame.  If we did a concrete floor we would have had to use about 46 sixty pound bags of concrete and it would have taken days to get it finished.  Why we didn't think of wood earlier is beyond me, lol.

Now that the door, frame and tiles are out it's time to refigure.  We have to raise this floor before we can install the new door:

Mike has it figured out….he cuts a strip of 3/4" PT plywood to fill the space where the door plate was:

Adding glue to that section:

Board is in and Mike is drilling in the concrete screws:

Next up…time to cut all of the cross boards for the base of the floor.  It was really nice of our neighbor to give us his table saw:)  We may have to buy it from him after all.  Mike has to cut each one on an angle as one part of the floor is lower than the other:

The floor base boards are in place:

Mike nailing in all the PT 2x4s:

Now for the plywood top:

After the first 8 foot section we worked on the rest of the hallway.  Mike doing the last of it:)

Yay we are level with the rest of the house:):)

It has been a long day so far but we got enough in to get the new door in.  Next up…the door is taller than our opening.  Mike has to use the reciprocating saw the cut the top of the doorway out…through wood, concrete and wire lath.  Ugh…I feel bad for Mike.  It was really rough on him I even volunteered to "try" to cut it but he said there was no way I would be able to do it.  

He got it all cut out and now it's time to add some framing for the door:

The new door going in:

That's it.  That took us all day and it is starting to get dark and we don't want to make any mistakes.  We stapled some paper over the sides of the door for the night.  We are done for the day.  Mike's arms need a break.

We are just happy to get that much done and now we can rest.  Mike and I have been planning and shopping.  I will tell you more and post more pictures on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

Lisa:)