February 2021 - This Ugly House

Leveling the floors was a process my construction crew started working on immediately after they demolished each floor. They started at the top and worked their way down replacing joists and lining the exterior walls with 3/8″ plywood.

The third floor joists were in the worst shape. Two were compromised by a terrible plumber in the past who hacked halfway through them to run plumbing lines. Four were cracked, and two were charred at the ends from an old house fire. Half of the joists were held inside the wall pockets 1/2″, and the floor sloped 5″ off level towards the center of the house. My contractor tore down double layers of sheet rock covering old plaster and lath walls, plus a 4″ concrete slab in the bathroom. Adding up all that weight plus years of neglect equaled a house that was ready to cave in.

Sometimes you hear about a building collapsing in New York City, and now I understand how that might happen. Our house was a rental for many decades. No one really put in the time, energy, or money to maintain it. As a result, this house was held up by one band-aid after another so when it came time for us to remodel, we were out of band-aids.

The second floor prior to replacing all the floor joists. Oh yeah, to add to the floor weight, that radiator weighs about 600 lbs. You can see the joist deflection in this photo when you compare them to the newly level and applied plywood on the far wall.

Prior to the realization of replacing all the floor joists on the second floor, I researched and noted which LVL beams and hangers to use when I drew this diagram for my contractor. We passed everything by our engineer, who has the final sign off on the construction.

Midway through replacing joists.

The rear chimney breast. We’re leaving the top half exposed brick, which will someday be Amy and my bedroom.

First and basement floor

The first floor leveling was not as bad as the second floor. We were able to save half of the joists and sister them. “Sistering” is where you abut a new 2×6 or 2×8 along side an existing floor joist, level the top of the 2x, then secure it to the old joist. Repeat for each joist, then you will have a level frame to put down a level floor.

The old floor joists are seen just below the new 2×8’s running along the floor. This method is still structural as long as the original floor joists extend into the wall pockets 3″ to 4″.

And the same for the basement floor. The basement floor bounced as you walked across it, so it was time to reinforce.

We had to replace the front exterior rim joists and corner posts as well. They were completely rotted from years of water leaks. Everything indicated in yellow is what we replaced on the front interior wall.

My contractor had to secure temporary beams and lally columns through the front of the house while his crew replaced the rim joists and posts at the wall inside.

Second floor: floors leveled. Time for wall placement.

First floor: floors leveled. A pile of 2×4’s await being built into stick walls.

Plumb walls

The next phase, after the 3/4″ plywood sub floor was down, came the stick walls. After drawing the layout directly from the plans, we started building the load bearing walls near the stairs on all three floors using 2×6’s. We needed it to be wide enough to bury the 4″ plumbing waste line and electric conduit that will feed the rest of the house from the cellar. After my contractor got the walls roughed in, I added the arch frames ordered custom from a great online resource; Archways and Ceilings: https://www.archwaysandceilings.com They were easy to order. Just specify the height of the arch from the spring line and the width of your opening and that’s it. Good lead times and prices too.

The future living room looking towards the stairs.

The future kitchen looking towards the future bathroom and future pantry. I decided to continue using 2×6’s to frame the archway wall between the kitchen and the living room. That width mimics the other two arches in the load bearing wall and creates a balanced design.

We needed to calculate the span for the openings in the structural wall, hence the heavy headers.

My contractor lined the perimeter walls with 2×4’s to reinforce the exterior and party walls.

We restored the fireplace in the living room (beyond) which I will post about later.

The second floor with walls.

Now everything is square and level. This was a time consuming process that overlapped with the demolition and lasted four months. Having to demo and replace full floors was quite a blow to our budget. After we cut some things and modified the plan to get back on track, Amy and I were happy with deciding to start from scratch. This will make everything else easier to install, and we’ll be able to sleep at night knowing the structure of this house is once again solid.