The Green Room: New Sill Plate and Joists

It was one of those weeks when the responsibilities of homeownership left us pining for the carefree life of an apartment or condo denizen. And I’m gonna have to resort to all caps to tell you why.

I spent the last few days replacing a rotten sill plate, the horizontal piece of wood that lies between the foundation and the floor joists. Said job leads to the following all caps admonition: PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT POUR A CONCRETE PATIO ABOVE THE LEVEL OF YOUR FOUNDATION! When that patio cracks and fails, please do not pour another one on top of it. If you attach a deck to your house please hire a professional to make sure that it’s attached with carefully considered and properly installed flashing. Do not allow dirt to pile up against your house. Remember that water has a tendency to move in unexpected ways while simultaneously feeding an army of termites. Out of sight and out of mind, the wood in your house will rot out while you enjoy the high life of barbecues and cheap beers on your crappy concrete patio.

Speaking of professionals, if you live in Southern California be aware that all the well trained tradesfolk are working on Barbara Streisand’s Malibu mansion and are not interested in your tiny bungalow at least until the next, overdue, economic meltdown arrives. The professional I contacted for the sill replacement told me that he was busy for months and proceeded to tell me to do it myself, which is why I found myself wielding two car jacks and a sawzall for the past few days. He also suggested sistering the joists which took up another day that I could have spent doing the things that normally take up the time of glamorous urban homesteading bloggers in the big city such as pondering avocado toast recipes or dehydrating loquats.

After much all caps thinking, I came to the conclusion that we need a kind of time traveling Dr. Who character whose sold mission would be to stop misguided remodeling projects in the past. He’d spend a lot of time in the 1960s and 70s halting bad patio pours, stopping popcorn ceiling applications, preventing stuccoing, and outlawing drop ceiling material.

I’m sure you, my dear Root Simple readers have a few bad remodeling anecdotes to share . . .