THE RIGHT WAY vs WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD

this sounds like most decisions i make in life. good on ya for having a good attitude. when these sorts of things happen i truely hate myself

I did the leveling foam thing for a couple slabs outside my house. They're already settling back to where they were a few years later. Frustrating. But that's outside. I'm guessing you'll fare much better with it being an indoor job.

Whatever happened to the WEN series?

It seems like you probably overloaded the space under the floor with the foam, and it can expand, so it doesn't harden. With great stuff you've got to be careful about that.

2 carpet panels on me. Love you brother

Aw man, I know you’re not a fan of shop projects, but everyone sure loves a miter station build! 🎉🍻

Gorgeous shop Dave. Looks like it would be a great place to create

i love the honesty and transparency. great work!

I feel this video so much.

Great work! Next time would you consider grinding the high spots a bit? I know it's a ton of labor and really dusty, but maybe it would have been worth not needing the second layer of OSB and potentially make it more level. Anyway, love your down to earth attitude!

That's the same carpet i put in my garage/gym/shop

See that you used plastic sheeting over the studs and rockwool. Do you have any issues with moisture in your walls in Ohio?

Please forgive me for laughing about your floor. My ship is in the field stone basement of a 130 year old house built with hand hewn posts and beams. NOTHING is level, straight, plumb, or even. I had to hand pour select where the dirt floor was for the old coal bin. Ask that said, I would trade shops with you. You have a beautiful space to work in. You make and share great videos with its, thanks. Your shop is perfect for your needs.

Building on the suggestion to use a robot vac, you can program it to run at night relieving your brother of his vacuuming job entirely.

I've come to realize I am a messy woodworker; there's no way a carpeted floor could survive my glue-ups and finishing.

The rough side of OSB go up when roofing. This way the tar paper has something to grip to. You don’t want to step on tar paper that is stapled to the smooth side, it won’t hold. Luckily it was a shed and I was able to catch myself before falling.

That's one thing I never liked about what Mike Holmes does, he acts like everyone has an unlimited budget and can do whatever he says is right. Most people do what they can afford. Honestly just firring out that floor and putting plywood down may have served you just fine. And that would have been even cheaper.

Thanks for being transparent. Looking forward to the new shop furniture.

That was one heck of a journey good sir! I think you did the best with what you have. That also has my mind thinking as I would love to soften my concrete floor as well. Thanks for sharing good sir!

very interesting to see the process and mistakes, thanks!

I appreciated this so much! You think your slab is bad? Well mine is probably 6-10” fallen into the ground. I can’t afford even the foam installation below the slab or to jack hammer and repour not to mention the physically capable of doing all that myself. Back when my house was build it originally didn’t have the tiny garage it has now. I know that because the wall that enters into the kitchen has original wood siding or what’s left of it. The guys in town at the time who would’ve been hired are very well known and disliked for their crappy work as many houses throughout my area, and town really, have sunken garage floors or worse… foundations. They never packed the soil! So these massive slabs have completely failed, cracked at its weakest point and fallen up to 10” and I’m sure there’s other spots where it’s deeper. It’s so frustrating and there’s no way to pour enough concrete to fill it in again, it’d have to be a gut job or pray spray foam below would be strong enough to fix it but that’s doubtful. Anyways this was helpful, I’ve often thought about using ground contact lumber to build it up to levelish but I’d lose headspace. Fortunately the worst spot is by the wall where the garage meets the side of the house and that’s where I plan on building floor to ceiling cabinets for storage (I want majority vertical pull outs) so I can level a base and hopefully the worst of it will be hidden under cabinets. That’s my cheapest solution, I’d love to sue the company that poured such pathetic concrete slabs but that’s probably 30 years ago so it is what it is

Commisserations, Dave. hope the new furniture helps to reinvigorate your mojo - it must have taken a bashing from all that, 'should have' b.s. Good luck mate. I look forward to seeing you back on top of the creative-process.

Not sure why you didn't just get a concrete grinding company in. Probably would have cost you half as much.

Great seeing relatable renovation content. Seems like no renovation goes as planned 😅. Shop came out great!

It is a shame that the concrete people didn’t suggest grinding the hump in the center down. Diamond grinding down the center and using self leveling concrete overlay around the perimeter would have made this process a lot easier for you.

".... you hope the cheaper option works, and then you deal with the consequences later." This is the story of my life! 🤣

Use your planer with shims to run long sheets of osb through to create some tapered (sloped) subfloor to gradually get rid of the slope in the floor

well at least it is better then before!! and i love the carpet too!

Nice

Wanna come revamp my basement next? I'm only 2.5 hours from Toledo lol

How do you possibly have all of those machines and tools but no laser level? 😂

Carpet would be nice, personally I went with half inch exercise puzzle tile mats. Works great, absorbs crap to be thrown away later, easy on the knees. Only thing I don't like is that things are a little bouncy on top of it, but it's a rental that I can't drill holes into the wall, and I have to be mindful on the neighbors above and below. I wanted a little foam padding between vibrating surfaces and the floor/ceiling. I'm on team carpet as well though. We're all getting old and my knees thank us working on softer surfaces.

Mike, please, never ever ever swing a maul like a baseball bat again! You will eventually permanently damage yourself.

You should hold the maul, or an axe, near the head with your dominant hand, which slides down the handle as you swing, adding power as it goes. The baseball bat way gives the head incredible leverage/mechanical advantage AGAINST the small controlling muscles in your hands, wrists, forearms, shoulders and back. Lift the head with your biceps, to height, then swing away. It gives your torso a proper chance to play its part.

You will be able to swing, bash, and chop for a lot more years!

I think I’ll do that carpet in my shop. I’ve been trying to decide what to do and in the meantime have a bunch of throw rugs covering the OSB floor. I also have a good dust collection system and a good Dyson vac to clean up so I don’t think it’s an issue. Thank you.

I feel your pain. When we decided to install a glue down wood floor in our house I made a water level to measure all of the humps and dips in the slab and it was terrible. I could only afford to grind the floor with a 7" Makita grinder and about 5 diamond cup wheels and a lot of leveling mix (although 10 years ago the bags were a lot cheaper). It took me 3 months working on weekends while the family were out of the house for the day to get it all level (missed one spot that continues to haunt me to this day when ever I walk over that spot) but it saved us thousands. And as far as installing a subfloor over a subfloor that is common, and in fact we had to do that upstairs in a hall way leading to a loft room that sagged because the LVL beams installed by the builder were not quite the right size and it caused a near 1.5" drop at the end of the hallway.

I had almost the same issue and just had the high spots ground down, then a leveling layer and it turned out flat as can be.

What we have here is sunk cost fallacy. Shoulda removed that old concrete and done it right from the start.

What is the saying about having a good foundation before you build your building… It's just a garage it doesn't matter, 10 years later it's more than a garage. It's not so bad if you go into this knowing the corners are going to cut. I work for somebody who wanted everything done perfectly but then started cutting corners after things were already chosen where you can't go back. Needless to say it ended up with a lot of wasted time.

Just curious- was it expensive/time consuming to have the floor outlets added after the fact? I had a moment and totally forgot to do that when I had my shop slab done three years ago and it’s my only major regret!

I am a builder. Sorry to say, but an uneven floor is a no-no for me, especially these days when you can find so much stuff online and rent all kind of equipment, don't even need to buy anything. What I would have done would be to get a 10-foot straight edge, a laser level and a concrete grinder. Locate and get rid of all the high spots, or if there is only one big one, then focus your grinding there. After that, depending on how out of level and bad it is get a mix that goes over thick areas of about 3/4" to fill all the big valleys, do all that myself and then hire professionals to do a top finish coat of self-leveling unless I felt super confident and had 2 people helping me then I would do it myself.

Love the whole walk through, play by play, and honesty.

I'm in the process of finishing my first Dream wood shop and am inspired with the carpets idea. Do you know what the manufacturer and specifics were for the old carpet? I'd like to try and see if I can't meet those specifications but at a lower price point. Big fan and really enjoyed this video.

Stumpy Nubs put carpet in his shop too. And Scotch guard your carpet, it'll make it a bit easier to vacuum.

I liked the way this video dealt with problems and solutions. One idea I had regarding bouncy cameras was what Matt Jackson at Next Level Carpentry made: A boom arm attached to the ceiling.

You made good lemonade. And you learned something. And you shared so we would learn. Win-win-win

First things first, has it really been 8 years since you moved into this space? My how time fun when you're having flies! Thanks for this wonderful deep dive into the whole project. Your initial thoughts and how you executed the plan, identifying what you learned over time, and the methods of achieving a more eloquent solution was noting short of education and entertainment - edutainment. Looking forward to watching you continue to MAKE SOMETHING.

This is great. I remember seeing your older post 7 or so years ago, with your faux rock wall, and carpeted floors! I remember thinking, “I don’t knooowww….” Great video still, then and now. Be proud of your growth, sir.

This is an awesome video.

This reminds me of when I helped a friend replace the wood laminate flooring in there home. They wanted to reuse the foam underlayment.

Which was a mistake for multiple reasons, first it was too think and made the new tongue and groove flooring bouncy it has also shrunk in places and had gaps, which was fine for the thinker glued together laminate.

About a year later we pulled the floor up and put down the proper underlayment and 5 years later everything is holding up amazing.

Some shortcuts aren't worth it 😂.

Would you be mad if I said you remind me of Adam Savage from Mythbusters?