Front hallway discovery

In my search of even more hardwood hiding underneath the subfloor, I began prying in the front hallway only to find that the hardwood from the front living room ended there. In the process of prying I mangled the subfloor plywood pretty good. Dropping my prybar through the crack also influenced my decision to pull it all up. The more that I got off the more I came to realize just why the hardwood had ended where it did. 

On closer inspection, once I got the bottom layer of plywood off, it became apparent that the stairwell (to the right side of the pictures) had once extended all the way to the exterior wall, and that when they created this hallway they had enclosed a stairway landing between the third floor floor and the second floor ceiling.

We couldn't really figure out why the stairwell bumps inward as it climbs upward from the visible studs. But courtesy of my dad's help, we re-enclosed the landing and strengthened the subfloor in the hallway to get rid of the creaks and flexing.