The past 5 days have been busy with nearly 2 tons of cement being poured in my kitchen and dining room, by hand. By the time we are done with leveling out our slab flours to be even, there will be 2 tons on concrete in our kitchen and dining room! If you recall, we already poured 800 pounds of concrete to level our floor last year in the kitchen. We had no idea that the problem was as big as it was until we started installing the kitchen cabinets against the walls. Apparently the foundation sank over the past 50 years at some point, which is not uncommon with a slab foundation.
How to Level Uneven Concrete Floor
So, we removed the Tarkett flooring and plan to re-install it once the floors are level. Below is one of many, many wheelbarrows of concrete that has entered my kitchen.
They ended up using 2,600 pounds on concrete in the kitchen with another several bags of self-leveling cement on top to fill in the low spots. I did not help with this project, although I really should have. It was a hard, tiring job to be sure. However, it is not something you can do while watching your kids (and dog), as you’ll see below with photos of the concrete drying process! LOL
You can see how thick the concrete is in the picture above, it’s not hard to see how almost 30 bags on concrete disappears. The spots in the center of our kitchen were off by as much as 3 inches! It gradually lessened as the floor reached the exterior walls and into the dining room. We used the level for each section of the floor and measured the depth of concrete needed. For the kitchen, they did it by hand. They had to go back through 2 more times to use the level to find low spots and fill them with the self-leveling cement.
Using shims to aid in leveling a concrete floor
For the dining room, they used the iLevel to see where the floor needs concrete. They then cut wood shims to the right heights to match the depth of concrete that needed filled in each section. As you can see below, some parts of the floor needs a lot of concrete while other parts only need 1/4″. The shims really made the job easier. They filled the floor with concrete up to the shims in each area. We have about 1/2 of the dining room floor done at this point. When we are all done, there will be 2 tons of concrete in my kitchen and dining room!
[slickr-flickr tag=concretediningroom]We had left our BEST Island Range Hood light and fan on during the installation and had no way to turn it off that night. The concrete was still wet. So, our brave Elijah climbed carefully on the tops of our cabinets to reach the fan, to turn it off. He was so proud of himself and that he could help when mom and dad couldn’t!
Even though we made several barricades, our dog, Arnold managed to make his way to the wet concrete. To be fair, this is his normal routine to go outside, however, we were not happy to have wet concrete dog paws around the house! Mud is bad enough! LOL
Elijah first noticed the paw prints and told us all to come over to see them. We did and quickly found Arnold to clean his feet. Meanwhile, Elizabeth found the paw prints and made a matching set next to them. We poured the concrete in sections over the course of 3 days. Elizabeth was so surprised that the concrete was wet where she was because she thought that section was dry. She was embarrassed. So, after cleaning her socks and feet, I still had a snap a picture of my girls’ foot prints!
Re-installing the Tarkett laminate flooring was a breeze! There were a few pieces that we couldn’t reuse because of the way they were damaged on the uneven floor but we were able reuse 98% of it! My kitchen floor looks beautiful again and I couldn’t be happier about the progress we are making in our kitchen remodel!
This was not a paid post. My own opinions were used based on my perceptions and experience. Thank you to CliqStudios and Broan-NuTone LLC for their ongoing relationship with AkronOhioMoms.com.
