Here’s a basement dug down in an old house. Concrete floor, with padding and carpet straight on. there is a wall unit blocking off a cupboard, with a small crawl-door cut into the stairwell for access. The carpet is quite old, and has had two boys and at least one cat and one dog contribute to its patina over the years. The job – put down maple floor, open the cupboard back up, and get rid of the crawl-door. With some help from my friend …
It looks like this to start …
Back of basement before
- Front of basement – before
so first – rip up the carpet and under padding (yeech), pry the nail strips out of the concrete (an ouch or two), thoroughly clean, and start putting down the new padding.
The new floor is engineered maple. Since it is going directly on concrete, it should get an underlayer of insulated foam, which is silvered on one side to keep more heat in. Since the next use of this space is destined to be loud entertainment, a layer of green soundproofing foam is put down first. The underpadding is kept in position with seams kept tight as possible with red tuck tape. Then the wood on top.
Green soundproofing underpadding
basement floor in full swing
The room was pretty square, except for all the nooks and crannies against the stair wall. There was quite a lot of fussing and cutting needed there. The wood went to the wall, and inside the newly liberated cupboard. Someone else was painting and doing the baseboard, so I left it looking like this for their next steps …
Basement after
phicksation 