Project Hopping (part 2)

The first step in building my shop floor was deciding on a foundation.  The barn's foundation is made up of 8x8 hemlock timbers resting on flat field stones.  If all was sound with that, I would simply hang 2x6 joists right to the timbers.  But the barn's foundation has been kicked around by 150 years of frosts and one box elder tree that was left to grow for a good 10 years until it pushed one of the sills right off its stones.

Now remember, this project is a down and dirty attempt to make some space for finishing up some projects in the house.  I'm not trying to build a shop for filming episodes of "This Old Cabinetry Builder."  My first thought was to build frames underneath three 4x8 sheets of 3/4 plywood and mount those on blocks inside the dirt floor barn. But once I figured the amount of time and materials that would take, I thought, why not hang a floor system from the one good foundation beam I have, then when I get around to straightening out the other sills some summer weekend, I can extend my floor to meet those too.

Once I decided I was going to hang some joists off an existing foundation beam, I had to make sure that beam was well supported and relatively level.

I started by digging down through about 10 inches of loose wood chips and wood scraps to reach solid ground. The wood scraps were most likely left-over from when the house had a wood-fired cook stove, the other detritus (i.e. hub caps, a doll's head, an ancient bingo chip) were remnants of a later era.

Having reached solid ground, I was ready to put the jack to use and bring my support beam as near to level as possible without causing other parts of the structure to complain too much. If you physically forced a bent old man to stand up straight all of a sudden, he'd most likely bite you.  An old barn might come crashing down if pushed too far.

I used cinder blocks to support the newly leveled beam and then began planning the floor system which would extend from this beam into the room almost like a deck off the side of a house.

handyman