[turtle]

With the pandemic and a child who's dream in life is to be a professional ballerina, my wife and I wanted to build something that would really help her out. While she is taking classes in person again, there was a period where no classes could be had. Since it might happen again and she likes to workout at home, we built a dance floor. Well, I did the hard work, but all the kids and Mrs T helped. We went with the pool noodle method since the type of material the pool noodles are made of actually withstands abuse really well while providing years of "spring" for the floor.

Our noodle slices are 1 3/4" thick. Pool noodle jig to ensure they are all the same size.


The build is done with 1/2" plywood sheathing that has pool noodles glued in a 7 x 12 pattern on the bottom.




The space is 20' x 9.5'. This worked out to most whole sheets with only a few slivers on the edge near the wall.


Then comes the 3/4" T&G plywood that is placed on top with staggering seams. So where I started with full sheets on the left for the 1/2", I started on the right for the 3/4". I also cut one of the sheets in half to offset the seams within the T&G


It was "accidental" that I managed to align the markings for the joists on the T&G, but it actually educated me on laying a subfloor to some extent. Since we want bounce in this floor, I only put about 8 screws total and that was just to keep things mostly in place. We want movement and bounce so it wasn't glued or screwed along like I'm learning an normal floor is done.


One other amazing "it just worked out" is that the door opens over the new flooring. In fact, after we lay the Marley down on the plywood it will still have enough clearance to open the door! We aren't planning to have it be a normally traversed door, but still nice that it can be done.

The Marley will be there middle of next week and the barre supports are on the way too. We still need to get the barres, they will be 12' and likely poplar. We are working on quotes for the full mirror wall that will include a double gang outlet passthrough as well.

My wife still needs to paint the walls too. She picked some colors and it going to have fun with it. I still have to finish out the end near our treadmill. We are going to make it more of a ridged finish with shoe molding capping it too.

[Brad]

Wow, that's really cool, and using pool noodles (and building the jig!) as a cushion/suspension is kind of brilliant!

When I was a youngling, I would have loved to have something like this in my house. I took two years (I think? it's been a few decades…) of gymnastics, jazz, and tap lessons, and I had to suffice with practicing in the yard and driveway, both of which were pretty horrible options all around. This custom build of yours looks like it should be a huge boon to the little lady's ballet practice.

[turtle]

Thanks Brad. We are all pretty excited about this space. It will be useful for the Tae Kwon Do practices like sparring too. The sprung floor is amazingly versatile and will be of benefit for everyone, even though we currently only have two taking dance. Dance is the primary focus because all the other uses can work with a dance floor, ballet needs to be done on a specific floor though.

This space is really coming together! Yesterday I filled the gap under the door and also closed the hole at the treadmill side. I also took down stuff form the walls and cleaned them up with plaster filler. It didn't need much, but there were a few holes that didn't make sense to leave since Mrs T and the kids were going to pain the space. That has begun though there is still lots to be done there.

[Bryson]

As someone who specifies and inspects stage dancefloors as part of my job, that's actually pretty good!

[turtle]

Thanks Bryson! We are really excited about how this project is turning out. We were able to get the barres from Lowe's though they are not solid wood, they are round handrails with joined wood. They have a solid top though and will do just fine for this place. We have to stain them since they are unfinished.

Mrs T and the kids have been painting up a storm down there. She wanted the plywood painted since the plywood isn't smooth and didn't want splinters in the Marley. She just picked up $9 as-is paint from Lowe's for that portion. I'll try to get some updated images of the space now. It will be a massive difference when the painting is done and the barres are up. The mirror wall is going to be a completely different kind of awesome.

[Bryson]

Fun fact: "Marley" stopped making vinyl dancefloor in 1978. But we still all call it that!

Harlequin make the good stuff. That's what I wish we could afford on all of our projects. The Rosco stuff is about 75% as good at around 60% of the price, though.

Just know that laying Marley is a bit like putting on one of those screen protectors: a tiny, seemingly insignificant piece of grit underneath will seem like a boulder once the Marley goes down. It's a pain!.

[turtle]

I actually was wondering about the name since it is a proper noun. Thanks for sharing that.

We were going to look at other options for flooring because this stuff is not cheap. Given Harlequin is what my girls have been dancing on from the beginning and the major companies use (Houston, NYC, etc.) I couldn't talk Mrs T into a different brand/company.

Thank you for the tip on that. I would be really frustrated not knowing that and having to pull the Marley up just to clear debris again.

Speaking of the Marley, it is supposed to be here Wednesday but I'm not sure the painting will be done at that point for the flooring to be able to go down.

[turtle]

We are making progress! MY wife has a few changes to make with the colors at the end of the wall as well.

Wednesday the mirrors get installed. I installed the barre supports recently too:

[drewprops]

WOW!!!!
No, seriously: WOW!!!
I love this.
The reason, the method, the result.
What a neat thing you are doing for your daughter!!

There's only one thing missing:

Video of Brad doing jazz dance.
j/k

A friend of mine did Irish dancing in her twenties and was up until recently still doing it in her early 40s. I wonder if she might be interested in doing something like this?

...

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by drewprops j/k

No.

No, I think that would be appropriate.

[turtle]

Thanks Drew. It feels good making the progress on this and knowing they will be using it regularly.

[turtle]

Mirrors are in!


They sure do make the space look really big!

[turtle]

Barres are up! Last thing to go is the finish work on the painting and one high spot at the joint of the flooring where there was an issue with the tongue and grove. Then we get to put the Marley down and call it finished!

[Dr. Bobsky]

Amazing!

[Kickaha]

That's really damned cool, turtle.

[Mac+]

This is fantastic turtle - congrats! 👏👏👏

[drewprops]

...

[Capella]

That looks amazing!

[turtle]

Thanks y'all. It really does amaze me the progress that space has made. It doesn't look like a basement now, other than the lack of windows that is.

[Bryson]

How are you doing the seams on the Marley?

Tape is easy and pretty good.. Welding is better but oh so hard to do well.

[turtle]

All tape at this point. The outer edges will all be taped to the floor. In the middle I'm planning to put tape down face up and have the flooring touch so there is nothing but a small seam on the top. If I'm force to tape from the top I will, but I'm not expecting that. This floor isn't going to get a normal studio worth of use so I should be fine.

[kscherer]

*snip*

If you want to see the silly, it was moved over here at Turtle's request.

And now back to our program!

[turtle]

I'll share a little update on what has been happening here with the studio. We had some water damage and that was covered by insurance. We just had the ceilings repaired in there and sheetrock run across the whole ceiling as part of the repair. Now we have some final painting and then we can finally put the Marley down. My wife is so protective of that flooring that should wouldn't let us put it down until all construction work has finished in there.

I have a few more things to do in there and then it is all on her. I'm going to put rope LED lighting around the top edge and smooth some high spots in the plywood subfloor. Then I'm done. I'm really looking forward to this being done given it has seemed to take FOREVER to get finished.

The girls have been dancing on it, but on painted plywood and not Marley... so they can't wait either.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by turtle then we can finally put the Marley down.

Hey. HEY.

NO ONE disses the Marley.

[turtle]

I just saw this post! Perfect, well done!

For an update, I added color to the lighting:


Mrs T has some touchup finishing then we can call it done. We had a delay due to the water damage repair but it is done now. The floor has been sanded down even and we are almost done! A shade under a decade too! At least my girls still dance on it every week.

[kscherer]

Looks good, Tony. You did a great job. Gonna do anything with the floor? Paint, or something?

[psmith2.0]

Would be cool to have a lighted floor, Saturday Night Fever style with the glowing, colored squares.

This is the one part of not having kids I miss/regret. I’d be building cool stuff like this all the time. Bat poles, secret doors, dance rooms, mazes, indoor jungle gyms, Star Wars-themed rooms, etc. Sems like a waste to do it just for me.

[Bryson]

Originally Posted by kscherer Looks good, Tony. You did a great job. Gonna do anything with the floor? Paint, or something?

I think he said that there's vinyl dancefloor going down on top of that. It's all about the right amount of grip vs slide.

[turtle]

Yeah, we have the proper ballet dance flooring (Marley linked to in the first post) but Mrs T is so protective of that flooring that she won't let it go down until all work is done in that space. It isn't cheap and it isn't very forgiving. So if I have to use a ladder in there, no Marley on the floor. Heck, we can't wear normal shoes on the floor. Ballet/pointe shoes or barefoot, nothing that touches dirt or asphalt.

I was going to paint the floor where I had to sand down, but that doesn't make sense with the Marley going on top. We did the paint to keep splinters from jabbing the Marley and make it better for the girls in the mean time while waiting to get all the other things done.

Thankfully we are finally in the final stretch. Just some final touchups and it is ready!

[turtle]

The floor is done!


The only thing left is to get a "fancy" shoe molding to go on the end of the dance floor. We haven't found the "perfect" one yet so it is just exploded wood for now.