I pulled up to Shawn's place in Knox/Henderson earlier this week and she met me at the door with a hug.
That's the second time she's hired me this year. A few months back I had her hardwood patio set in the shop — stripped it down to bare wood, refinished in dark walnut, sealed it in marine-grade for the Texas sun. This time she had a bigger problem.
A room attached to the garage — part of the original structure of the house — had been working through a termite infestation for years. She couldn't tear it down. Dallas protects original construction on a lot of these older properties. If a room was part of the house when it was built, you don't get to take it down. You have to fix it, however bad it gets.
It got bad.
I pulled up the laminate and the original decking under it. The laminate came up easy. The original boards came up in pieces. Termites had been working through them for years — long enough that some of the boards had less wood than tunnel.
Underneath wasn't better.
Six of the joists are gone — eaten through enough that I won't trust them. A few of the rest are marginal but solid enough to keep. The dirt under the room is the same dirt that's been there since the house was built, and the termites have been feeding off the framing the whole time.
The exterminator was in Friday. Treated the joists, the soil, the perimeter — everything — and gave it the weekend to settle.
I'm back Tuesday.
The plan:
- Replace the six bad joists
- Lay new decking across the whole room
- Hand it off for the finish floor
It's not a complicated job. It's the kind of repair that happens a hundred times a day in a city this old. But this one I can't shortcut — because the only legal option is to do it right.
That's the part of restoration I actually like. When the easy answer is off the table — when you can't tear it down, can't skip the joists, can't lay new decking over rotten framing — the work gets honest. There's one way through, and it's to do every step the way it should be done.
Shawn knows that. That's why she calls.
New photos Tuesday once the floor is in.