Once you commit yourself to a certain level of perfection in a project you find yourself captive to forces beyond your control. This is what happened when I pulled up the carpet in Norah’s room.
There was a soft spot between two sheets of plywood. It looked as if someone had dropped an 18 lb. bowling ball off the top rung of a step ladder. We knew about the soft spot when we bought the condo. The building inspector said it could probably wait until we replaced the carpet. And now is then.Â
In my mind an acceptable fix would have been to screw a thin plate of sheet steel over the spot. My buddy Kevin looked at it and said it was probably worth doing the job right. And this meant replacing the plywood. Bear in mind, this sheet of plywood ran under one of the walls. Which meant cutting the plywood along a joist line with my circular saw. Which I’ve used all of twice in my life.
I nailed a 2 x 4 long the line of cut as a kind of ad hoc jig. This left just enough blade exposed to cut through the 5/8″ plywood. I’m just glad my friend Bob wasn’t around. He would have  recommended that I take up ALL the plywood and replace it with 19/32″.Â
I’ve got to say that having a laser sight on your circular saw is a wonderful thing. It made it simple to make a clean, perfectly straight cut down the joist line. This is a GCD saw, or whatever Lowe’s store brand is called and it’s really nice for the price. The carbide tipped blade zipped through nails like nothing…I was halfway expecting the blade to shatter, throw hot metal and put my eye out.
Turns out that there was no tongue in the adjoining sheet of plywood. These sheets fit together with tongue-and-groove to prevent sagging when a seam isn’t supported by a joist. This means I’m going to have to put sections of 2 x 4 between the joists to support the seam when I replace the plywood.Â
Remember, this all started with wanting to clear out a corner of the house in order to have a nice quiet place to write.
