Out of Plumb

I have been putting everything into the complete gutting and remodel of the upstairs. Call it nesting, fiscal responsibility or environmentalism but that project was something that just had to be done. So far it has damn near killed me, week after week of 15 hour days and now that school has started and I am back to teaching its even worse. The end is near, I simply have to paint 2 more rooms and the stairwell/hallway and the major stuff is done. I mean there will be no floor coverings and you will be able to see where we cut into the floor to run the ducting but livable and before the baby arrives. Just in time judging from the size of the tummy.

Discoveries:

NO insulation in the vertical outside walls and half of the sloped ceiling.

NO sill plates allowing cold air to migrate up and down walls, essentially every wall was an outside wall. Dido on the second story floors.

A pair of turn of the century baby shoes walled up inside the cavity above a second story window.

Newspapers from 1918 under all of the upstairs linoleum describing American involvement in WWI. I was able to save about 50%.



This would have been done more than a week earlier except that the original construction on the second story is the worst I have ever seen. Old windows and doors cut in willy-nilly with no regard for bracing. Undersized lumber with spans far to large and a profound aversion to plumb. Seriously I had walls that were 2 inched out of square in 4 feet. 2 inches in four feet! Even squaring to the naked eye I would expect to be far closer than that. Drywall was an exercise in abstract art. No two edges were parallel, every sheet was a complicated custom cut, it took forever and then the results were so bad that taping was a nightmare. Anyway I am glad it is done. I will post pictures.