All Forum Posts by: Chris Gorman

@Michael Evans I wish we could have saved the oak in kitchen/bathroom but there were so many patches and the oak that was there was in pretty rough shape.. We were able to save the oak in bedrooms and living room though. All original to the house and the refinishing came out great. The previous owner had them all covered up with carpet:

@Account Closed Ha! First few pictures are giving me some deja vu.. We have our tile guy coming in next weekend and should be wrapped up in a few days. Here are some photos of where we're currently at:

My wife and I were just out in Pittsburgh about a month ago. Great city! Very reasonable real estate too!

Alrighty, so it's been quite a bit of time since my last post... Since I obviously am having a hard time finishing the project with other things going on, I've decided to hire a contractor to put down the tile. 

I'm doing 12x12 porcelain instead of 12x24. I did a lot of the prep work. Oak is ripped out along with all the nails/staples all over the place.. and we're down to the subfloor planks! There are some portions that are compromised and will likely need to be cut out and replaced. 

Should be finished within 2 weeks if everything goes good with this contractor. After that, I'm putting up new trim and done! Next problem will be finding a decent tenant!

Awesome! Lots of good info to review. I'll be ripping out the oak and reevaluating situation from there

Tanya, Max said "3/4 inch ply over them or better yet rip them up and put the ply directly on the joists"

I don't know how you'd put them on the joists w/o ripping up the subfloor that's already there. Can't really leave any room for interpretation when I'm possibly dealing with a 'recipe for disaster'

Adam, I haven't measured the spacing between the joists but can give you an update this weekend.

Max, I can understand why you're suggesting ripping up the oak, but why would I rip up the subfloor that's there? If it's level and over an inch thick why would I rip that out down to the joists just to put a new subfloor down?

Thank you Pat! 

I appreciate everyone's input so far. It's been very helpful

Jim, the floors are surprisingly level. Are you suggesting leaving out any kind of mortar and just screwing the cement board down to the wood?

Ahmed, I have about 200 sq ft I'll have to tile between the bathroom and floor. Between the oak floor and the subfloor I have 1 1/4" and all is surprisingly level. Are you suggesting applying hardwood and then tiling on to that? I've already purchased the 1/4" cement board. I'm not in a serious time crunch so I'm planning on taking my sweet time with each step of the project!