I did our basement floor with Delta-FL (like dricore but all plastic) as a "subfloor" and Allure linoleum floating floor from HD. It meets requirements (cheap tough dry play room) but it is not a proper installation. The delta product wants a sub floor if the laminate is not used. Because the floor does not have a proper subfloor it is really soft - which is great for 4 young kids banging their heads, but not for heavy furnature feet. We have had problems with water in the basement. I have made some changes outside (grading and downspouts) that I hope fixes the problem. However, I still plan to have water down there at somepoint. The Delta keeps the floor off the concrete and a sump pump makes sure it gets rid of any water that might accumilate. If the pump fails or some other problem and the basement floods, the linoleum is water proof. Delta is $0.51/sq ft and the Allure was $1.67/sq ft.

Hey again...sorry I took so long to get back to ye here... Re: "pink or blue foam insulation" for the attic - you mean the sheet kind, right? Right, that stuff. I found Dow blue foam that's 4" thick and R-20, so if I get you right you say to lay that over the high-density (R-30) fiberglass batts placed in the joist bays instead of another layer of fiberglass? What is the benefit over using the two layers of batts? Two things: 1. Air infiltration gets cut way down. Thinking about this more, though, it might actually create problems, given that the foamboard is basically waterproof. You'd basically be creating a vapor barrier over that part of the attic. Mainly you have to make sure that with all this filling and sealing, you're still getting enough air exchange into your house. Worst case is that you'd have to install an energy-recovery ventilator (ERV) to make sure any natural gas applicances don't backdraft and suffocate you w/ carbon monoxide. The infiltration issue also is a concern w/ moisture loads in the winter. Again, proper ventilation and humidity regulation would address that. (If NH is anything like Nebraska, you're crunchy dry all winter anyway, so some extra humidity inside is actually a good thing.) (Wow, that was long!) 2) From what I've read and been told, the insulative ability of fiberglass insulation drops with the air temperature. Cellulose and foam don't apparently have that problem. Plus, foam has a better R-value per inch (witness the R-5 per inch of the 4" foam - even high-density fiberglass has at most, what, R-3.5?) In fact, if it were ME, and I had addressed the moisture issues, I'd go solely with foam. If you were really nuts, you could even buy a DIY spray-foam kit and foam the joist bays in. Tigerfoam and Fomo Foam are a couple products that I've heard good thing about. Googling for those should get some info. Something else to think about - it might pay to look into some alternate source of heating fuel, be it natural gas, electric, what have you. What's a typical winter heating bill in that area if you're using oil? Jason

I have owned two old houses. The first one was a craftsman/colonial from 1926. The previous owners had painted over most of the original chestnut woodwork with flat white paint. This woodwork had been in the original untouched finished condition for 70 years before these people got the house. The rest of the woodwork that didn't get that treatment (fireplace mantle, bookcases flanking fireplace, and stair banister and newel post) was painted with Rustoleum high gloss exterior black paint. The brick fireplace was also painted with the Rustoleum. When they painted the walls and trim, they didn't bother to cover the oak floors with mahogany ribbon molding and corner knots since they were installing hot pink wall-to-wall in every room! Yup...hot pink in the livingroom, diningroom, sunroom, up the stairs, in the hall, and all three bedrooms...lovely! They also remodeled the kitchen with pink-hued faux woodgrain cabinets, pink formica counter and pink patterned peel-n-stick vinyl tile flooring. They cut a hole in the wall between the kitchen and a walk-in pantry to recess the refrigerator thereby making the walk-in pantry walk-in no more. The black appliances finished off the look of the pink kitchen. Moving on to the enclosed porch with the original textured glass fanlights and sidelights with the original glass exterior door, they painted over the inside of all the windows (the textured side of the glass) and sided over the exterior of the fanlights and covered the glass of the door with some kind of laminate. They also continued the theme of the kitchen out onto this enclosed porch by laying down the same pink patterned peel-n-stick tile over the porch floor. The PO's before them had panelled over two beautiful stained glass windows above the fireplace on the inside and sided over them on the outside. Fortunately, they left the windows buried in the wall. They also removed and discarded the glass doors that would have been on the bookcases flanking the fireplace as well as installing drop ceilings in the livingroom and bathroom. We undid all of this nastiness by redoing the kitchen in a style that evoked the feel of a vintage kitchen. Removed all of the pink vinyl floor of the porch and stripped all of the textured glass of the sidelights and fanlights and removed the siding on the outside of the windows. Ripped up all of the hot pink carpet and had all the floors refinished. Restored the stained glass windows to their former glory by removing all of the panelling and siding that was hiding them. We also installed interior framing on these windows to mimic the rest of the moldings. We also spent three years, lovingly, painstakingly and personally stripping and refinishing all of the chestnut molding, banister, mantle and bookcases. So we decided to sell this past year and move closer to the train station. I was recently visiting a friend in the old neighborhood and the people who we sold the house to saw me and invited me in to see their handiwork. What did they do? You guessed it - painted all of the chestnut woodwork white including the mantle and bookcases! Their reason was that the brown molding just didn't go with the colors they had chosen for the livingroom, sunroom and diningroom - a slate gray/blue color. I wanted to scream at them "if you wanted slate colored walls you should have bought a loft in Chelsea and left my woodwork alone!", but instead I grinned and beared it. It's their house now. I just hope they understand they dropped the value of their investment by about $10,000. In our new house (1929 tudor), the previous owners had lived here for over 40 years. They had done the usual stuff - black and white vinyl tile over ribonned hardwood floors in the sunroom, foyer and vestibule; linoleum in two bedrooms, panelling in two bedrooms, hideous wallpaper in bathrooms and kitchen (including the ceilings). We are slowly correcting these issues. But they did leave us with three bathrooms with all original tile and fixtures, all original 6-panel doors, all original windows, all original light fixtures, the original beautiful deep green marble fireplace surround, the gracefully curved archways between all the rooms on the first floor, the original stucco and cedar shake siding, original shutters and iron railings on the outside, and all the original woodwork, albeit painted woodwork. And that's the way its going to stay.

if there is a bounce or a shift go down to the basment and lookup... you might need to shim a bit...but I bet the screws will do it for you. But what do you do when it's on your second floor? Our old floors are roller-coasters anyway (especially in a couple of places on the first floor where the floors were jacked up, presumably for additional support, but someone was WAY too enthusiastic with the jack), but on the second story we have a couple of really bouncy places. Really bouncy. But I don't know what to do about that. Can I take up the hardwood floor there to see what's happening underneath? How do I do that without cutting or breaking the floorboards? I'm really curious as to why this is the case. Any advice?