The Concrete King

My husband’s favorite project is probably this concrete floor- which should impress you because we have done a LOT of projects. That man put more time and research into finding the right way to do this than I thought possible and I love him for that because it’s going to be a big reason why this house keeps standing for another 150 years. That said, this was brutal and I would not like to do it again.

After our insane gravel installation we started to insulate (Josh’s other favorite thing) and then we got to actually prep for a real floor. Even though for most people a floor is just the beginning, this felt like the end of some of the worst parts of our renovation and we were thrilled to be taking those steps.

In order to insulate the concrete we laid down 2” polyiso which is a closed cell rigid insulation and is fairly waterproof and that was important given that our house is built into the side of a hill with natural springs running underneath it. On top of that we laid down a vapor barrier in order to further protect the concrete from moisture. Having no real clue how to do that we simply duct taped the sheets together and called it a day.

Then, it happened. They came and poured our beautiful new concrete floor! My mom was so excited that she asked my uncle to walk over to the house and carve the date it was poured into the floor (I’m pretty sure he thought she was crazy but he obliged). We knew that we’d be able to walk on it within 24 hours and so we drove up right away with a bottle of champagne and some plastic champagne flutes. When we arrived it was ear to ear smiles and we sat our butts on that concrete and drank the whole bottle (my aunt and uncle stopped by at some point during this and they ABSOLUTELY thought we were crazy- they probably weren’t wrong).

One thing that I didn’t realize about concrete is that, although it will be dry enough to walk on in about a day, it continues to cure and strengthen for the next 28 days so you should refrain from building on it until the end of that time frame. Because of this, I thought the weekend was going to be about celebration, mountain hikes and beers at the creek. We couldn’t do anything else on that floor right? Wrong. Josh had other plans that started with a very loud CRASH and then a very nervous “woah” at 7am the following morning. But that’s a story for a different day.

King Murphy

To be clear, The Concrete King is really Murphy. His royal highness usually enjoyed his days sunning himself on the porch but he came in to survey our work and clearly approved.