This picture shows the reinforcing stucco added to the front brick walls on the inside to solidify the open grout lines that existed. Holes were burned in the angle iron with an oxy-acetylene torch and then supported in place with the home-made brackets set at a level line with a laser level shot around the perimeter (love all those neat tools!). The old joist pockets in the existing walls had to be filled flush with masonry because the original joists (full dimensional 3 x 8's) were not on 16 inch centers. Some were 11", some 21" and some were on 18" centers. The joists were not perpendicular either. It made no difference when they were installed because tongue and groove fir underlayment boards were used, not dimensional plywood. I chopped new joist pockets on 16" centers with a pneumatic chisel (great tool and cheap too....only $29 bucks at Home Depot), shot a level line with the laser and installed the angles to support the new engineered joists in the future. Construction epoxy was used to set the 3/4" galvanized all-thread studs into the holes that I drilled into the walls.
