LOL! She uses Facebook and I wouldn't dare say a thing on Facebook about it, but seeing how she can't use Google, I don't think she'd ever find this post! Otherwise, it'd be world war three!

It's looking nice now. But I feel a problem coming. The rest of the room is 51 1/2". The boards, when installed, is 47 1/2". How do I install that extra 4"? Do I need more plywood and just rip a 4" strip on the groove side? Do I cut the tongue and grove off and convert them to none-tongue and groove boards? 4" isn't much....not sure how to continue with this. Not sure how to proceed there...any suggestions? The room is almost done. I got the last two 4' x 8' boards laying flat in the bedroom now so they don't bow. The last one I had installed, it was bowing a bit but we got it in. Not the best way, some of it is 1/8" gap but in the middle, there's a 1/4" gap or so, on the tongue and groove connection.

Also, the new boards, when I first install them, they're nice and bright. But after a few days, they darken in colour. Is that normal?

 

First you need to figure out if extra framing is needed to accommodate the 4" strip [easier to install now than after the last full sheet of ply is laid] Other than that I wouldn't be overly concerned about the narrow strip, T&G is nice but not necessary. Do you have enough scraps to fill that gap or do you have to buy a full sheet?

It's normal for lumber to change color as it's exposed to air and UV light.

 

If the tongue and groove connection isn't tight just walk on it to make sure it doesn't squeak. If it does squeak then rip a groove down the joint to eliminate the squeak.

 

Marksr,

We blocked the edges, so we should be good with the 4" strips. Originally, we would of definitely had enough pieces but because I had a sacrifice a piece to fix the mess up, I might have to purchase a new sheet. If I have to purchase a new piece, it doesn't need to be T&G, right?

Just so I'm clear, when I lay the full sheets, I should leave the tongue on if I can find scrap that have the groove. If not, then I should cut the tongue off and just lay plywood down that don't have a tongue and groove at all (the 4" strip). I've saved all the scraps and I think I have enough, but it won't be two strips 4" wide. It might be 8 little strips 4" wide. I'll go up and take some measurements. Once I get the full ones in, I'll have a better idea what I have. It'll be very hard laying a 4" strip if the 4x8 has the tongue and the 4" has the groove. I won't be able to get it under the drywall I don't think. I'll lay down a fully sheet and not attach it or anything, just to get an idea if I can sneak a 4" piece in, with the tongue and groove still. I just don't think it's possible.

Would it be better to have the plywood go under the drywall on that side but not have tongue and groove or would it be better to have the plywood not going under the drywall but have the 4" strip have the groove and the 4x8's that they connect to, have the tongue? You follow what I'm saying?

 

I'll give it another day and try again, but last night, after installing, we had no squeeks anywhere. Walked over every piece I had. There were no squeaks and no bouncing at all. Everything's been very sturdy (after fixing the joist problem).

 

T&G is always better but it's not that big of a deal next to the wall especially if there is sufficient blocking under the pieces. I don't see anything wrong with using up the scraps along that wall .... but then I have always been a little on the cheap side

 

If your last full sheet has a tongue or groove and the 4" piece that would go against the wall has a groove or tongue you could put down the 4" piece first and slide it under the wall then put down the full sheet and then pull the 4" piece from under the wall to meet it.

 

How important is that blocking there where that 4" strip is going to be? One of the blocks isn't close enough to the wall and it's under the 4x8. Is that gonna cause lots of issue? Should I tear that 4x8 out (I hope not!) and move the block closer to the wall? The other ones I can see. We put down the last full sheet that needed to go down. Now I just gotta do the doorway (maybe 4 foot or so) and that 4" strip. It's looking real nice.

JIMMIEM,

That's a great idea. I didn't get it in time though. Jess, my pregnant wife, also thought of that idea when she came up to look at how it was going. At that point, we were just finishing that last full sheet. I wish I did it the way you and Jess came up with. But I don't think it's gonna be that bad. The 4" strip just might not be under the drywall, at least not completely. That's okay though, the molding / trim / whatever you want to call it will cover it up. I can also put the hardwood under there, so no one will never know the plywood doesn't go all the way under the drywall on that wall.

 

Are the ends of the 4" strips supported?
You don't need to push the hardwood under the drywall unless that's where the end support for it is....otherwise just close enough so that the end is covered by the baseboard.

 

The ends of the 4" are supported by the joists and almost all the way across by the blocks, but the blocks I added, I couldn't get them really close to the wall, they're maybe 3" away. I used these brackets I bought and a special 90 degree screw driver to screw them into the joists. So, the joists supports them and the blocks will support them pretty good. We'll try adding a 4" piece and see how sturdy it is.

Getting the plywood covered by the baseboard shouldn't be a problem. There wasn't any baseboard in this room to begin with though. I'm going to have to purchase some when I'm done. According to my e-mail, the samples from that hardwood flooring store should be coming today via FedEx. We went to a local store to look at the other brand and didn't like it at all. Hopefully the stuff from the Canada store is nicer.

 

So, I did some hard work today and got the hardest piece of plywood in, the piece by the door. That was insane and I couldn't have done it without this 10$ thing called a Digital Angle Finder.

I got the 4" strip in by the wall, and it even goes under the drywall a bit. It actually wasn't very hard at all. I need to go purchase one last sheet of plywood because of some mistakes I made, otherwise, I would have had exactly enough.

Here's the thing though. Currently, there's some things we don't like about the house. The first is the electrical panel and subpanel. They're not large enough and I need to install a 200-amp panel. I don't think that'll be hard, although it might cost a bit for the breakers I'm thinking of going for (the arc-fault type ones).

I'm really big into electronics and that's how I make my money. Before I put this last 4" piece of subfloor down, I was thinking this could be the best time to try and modify the existing setup. Currently, there's a hole drilled through the drywall and the outside of the house. There's a coax cable (probably not even RG6). I was thinking of purchasing a box of 500 feet or so of the RG6 quad shielded stuff, some cat 6 ethernet wire, and a box of the 6P2C (RJ11, single line) or 6P4C (RJ14, two-line).

I thought then I'd purchase one of those ethernet, coax and phone wallplates. Afterwords, I could setup one of those distribution boxes in the basement. You know, they're kinda like an electrical panel, but instead, they have the cable modem, telephone stuff, etc. The current coax system throughout the house is horrible. The phone lines are even worse. For coax in the guest bedroom, they just ran it under the wall into the master bedroom. Seeing how eventually, we're going to install hardwood floor into every room (except basement and bathrooms), I thought now would be the time to redo the wires.

I see someone replaced the knob and tube wiring with new wires. They left the knob and tube there, but it was dead. I removed that. They ran the new electrical wire under the joists in the baby's room and down the wall. Somehow, they ran them through the studs to the lightswitch for the ceiling fan / light switch.

I wanted to do something similar. I wanted to run the phone line, the cat 6, and the coax down the wall to the basement and over to my knew box (that I haven't bought yet). There's always going to be blocks between the studs in the wall though, right? Also, the old subfloor that runs under the walls, that could be an issue as well. How would someone normally do this?

Do you get a drill bit and just slowly add extensions until you hit a stud in the wall, drill through it, add more extensions until you finally hit the subfloor, drill through that, run more extensions until you finally get into the basement? Then tie some sort of wire on the end of the drill bit and slowly start taking it apart. Once it's back up to the baby's room, tie the new wire (coax, or cat 6, or RJ11 / RJ14) onto the end of the wire I pulled through and then just pull it back through, down into the basement?

 

Has the house got standard framing? Get an electrical fish tape. Cut into the bottom of the walls near the floor and drill through the sole plates. Use the fish tape to pull the wires. Without a schematic or picture of the house framing it's difficult to recommend an exact plan.

 

Yes, I wish we had schematics. I'm almost thinking of writing down where the joists are in the baby's room and every time I do a new room, writing down where everything is, so I'd know in the future.

I found the fish tape at Home Depot. So far, there's been no sole plates. I don't think there's sill plates either. The studs are just attached to the floor joists or to the subfloor.

 

Are the joists attached to the wall studs? Can you see fire blocking? Do the wall bays seem open all the way to the basement? Could be balloon framing?

 

JIMMIEM,

I don't know the answers to most of your questions. Almost all the wall studs are attached to the floor joists.

We have one small strip of floor left open. Just a 4" area. We went with the hardest side of the room first. There weren't too many options as to where to put the wall plate. We have ductwork and beams and stuff like that. We found the place we wanted it. The one that made the most sense. It's fairly close to an electrical outlet. So, if someone has a TV in that room, they got a cable hook up right next to it. If they have a small coffee table or something, they got an outlet to power the phone and have a phone connection right there, etc.

Because we blocked near the wall and already put down the plywood over there, we couldn't run the wires under the plywood like I should have done. I went into the attic and I fed that fish wire down. We used a stud finder to find two studs that didn't have any blocks between them. It was perfect. The other one, closer to the window, that had blocks between the studs. This one, up in the attic, you can see where someone drilled a hole and ran electrical wire. They tried drilling a hole in the wood one stud over but didn't run it for some reason. We think it's because of all the blocks in that area. After a lot of work, we finally got the fish wire thing down there! We put the RG6 quad shielded cable and ran it up into the attic. Then, I drilled a hole on the opposite side of the room, in the attic. I ran the cable and fish wire down through the wall there. My wife pulled it out when it came down. Because there was that open 4" spot there, I was able to drill holes through the joists. Once I did that, I ran it out into the hallway. They used the floor joists for the cold air return and that's where I ran my coax to. Where the cold air return duct runs into the den down stairs, I drilled a hole and ran it behind the ductwork. That's going to be boxed in eventually so we'll never see it. I finally got it down in the basement and ran it through the joists. It's looking real good.

Now, I just gotta do it all over again for the CAT6 and CAT3 wires. Then, for the opposite side of the room. But I don't think that one will be hard at all, because I don't have to do anything with the attic. The CAT6 and CAT3 should go much easier though. It's a lot more flexible.

 

Hey, just wanted to let you guys know we're almost done with the subfloor. I still have that 4" wide strip left to put in (about 4 foot long or so). We got all the wires ran to the basement now, 3 wires on each side. One is cat 3 6C, the other is cat 6 gigabit ethernet and the third is coax. It was a bit harder running them than I expected. I thought getting them to the basement was the hard part, but it seems running them through the joists and making sure the telephone wire and ethernet wire don't touch electrical wires was a bit of a challenge!

I got three of them where they need to be, but I got two cat 3's and one RG6U coax left to run, maybe another 5 feet or so. The way I'm running it looks real nice, everything is hidden, so you don't see anything, but it just takes a bit of time. There's this yellow insulation in parts of the ceiling in the basement. I take it down, run the wires just right and then put it back up. Thankfully, I'm on the last little bit of insulation. I just gotta carefully go around this big 8x8 or whatever it is. I believe it's for a load bearing wall. I've decided not to drill into it but rather go under it. That's the only place the cables show.

Would it be okay to drill into that load bearing beam or should I avoid drilling into that at all costs? If I can drill straight through it, it'd be much easier and cleaner. The wires wouldn't show at all then...I'm just afraid of losing structural integrity if I start drilling. The 3 holes I drill might not weaken the integrity at all, but each room eventually will have at a minimum, 2 of those groups. One or two rooms might have three. That's going to be a lot of holes. What do you think?

Thanks.