Flooring in Bulgaria

I mentioned this in a previous post renovating in Bulgaria , something that you will have to tackle, if it hasn’t already been done, is to install new floors. Now the floors here in Bulgaria generally are mud floors. As you can imagine with such a primitive material the floors will not be even nor level. This is something that you will soon become accustomed to in Bulgaria, hardly anything is straight or level!

Here are a couple of pictures detailing what we inherited when we bought the house, as you can see, wires hanging down, solid old wooden door, and mud floors.

Now this might seem like a daunting task, but to be honest it is fairly straight forward. First things first, check to make sure that the cables are not live, a simple electrical tester from a DIY store for less than a lev will do the job.

Once your happy that your not about to get fried whilst working, start by working out the levels in the room.

We had decided to turn this room into a bathroom, as we already had a water pipe and drainage pipe in the corner, so this seemed like a simple solution, as it turns out, following on from other peoples work can be a right pain in the arse!

As we had the new pipework we were stuck following their levels, as we couldn’t cut the pipework any shorter to lower it. Now originally Donna and Marie (sister in law and wife) had thought about blocking the door off, as it wouldn’t be needed. So me being me and making more work for myself, I came up with the idea of turning the door into a cupboard, so as to maximise the amount of useable space in the room.

So I set about transforming a doorway into a cupboard, I then had the smart idea of making the cupboard a large cupboard so as to house the washing machine. As you can see I went for a simple timber construction for the framework, and then use tongue and groove for the upper shelves and chipboard (OSB) for the lower part, as the washing machine will be in the way and won’t be seen. You can see that I added a simple design at the top, just to try to make it look a bit prettier for Donna, plus it gave me a chance to have a bit of a play with my jigsaw and start to practise using my tools again.

My next task was to cut out the walls ready to house the pipework, here in Bulgaria all pipework and wiring are buried in the walls. I started off with a hammer and chisel, but soon realised that this was going to take me forever, so out came my trusted angle grinder with a stone cutting disc on it.

Now be warned this next step is immensely messy and incredibly dusty!!!

With window open and door shut, dust mask on, I set about cutting the walls. After a few minutes you soon realise that you can’t see a thing and the whole room is just one big dust cloud. I couldn’t even see the light from the window!

All in it took me an afternoon to get all the channels cut, and by the time I emerged, it looked like I had been in some sort of disaster movie, I was covered head to toe in brick dust! So after an impromptu shower outside to get rid of the worst of the dust and then a shower inside, I was ready to call it a day. Top tip, do this work towards the end of the day as you will really not want to do anything else once you are head to toe in crap!

Now as we were doing this as a bathroom we decided to put some plastic sheeting down just incase we ever happen to have any unforeseen leaks. I then proceeded to put all of the drainage in position, this is vital when putting in a new floor, as you can then put all of the new floor supports and beams in place around the drainage, believe me it is far easier to it this way, than it is to cut the beams out once they are in situ.

We had to raise the floor up by 16cm so as to allow for a suitable fall on the drainage which then caused a new problem, the floor would be too high for the new cupboard and the existing door. To get around this problem I built in a split platform so as to allow room for the door to open, as well as to fit the washing machine into the cupboard.

You will see that the flooring goes slightly over the threshold of the doorway, this was done on purpose to allow a snug fit between the door and the floor, so as to avoid any unnecessary drafts going into the bathroom. Believe me when it is -25 outside, you are glad to ensure that there are no drafts.

The pipework system we used is what’s called a welded system. Basically you put the pipe and the joint onto a machine that essentially melts the plastic, and then you quickly push the two parts together and the joint becomes absolutely rock solid, and guess what NO LEAKS!!

I managed to get all the pipework installed in about a day, which I didn’t think was too bad for an entire bathroom. Once this was done and we were happy there were no leaks, Donna (sister in law) made a mistake, she asked if I would like any help (it is her bathroom after all), great I thought, you can cut the insulation and fit it in the floor. I quickly showed Donna what to do, and away she went, after all how hard can it be to cut some insulation and install it. Well by the time Donna had finished, she looked like a tanned snowman, head to toe in white insulation, quite amusing really, but when women want to help, who am I to stop them ?

So out came the chipboard again to finish the floor off, once we were happy that the plumbing didn’t leak and the insulation was tightly packed in so as to protect the pipes in winter, it surprising just how much bigger a room feels and looks.

So now your floor is down, life will become so much easier, especially as you now have a flat surface to work off.

Here are some completed pictures to show you the transformation we achieved.