{"id":8,"date":"2013-12-14T22:24:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/?p=8"},"modified":"2015-03-14T06:32:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T06:32:07","slug":"leveling-floors-ceilings-in-120-year-old-farm-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/leveling-floors-ceilings-in-120-year-old-farm-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Leveling floors & ceilings in 120 year old farm house."},"content":{"rendered":"

First…A little history. <\/h3>\n

Back in 1985 my wife and I and our 5 children (at the time) purchased an old farm house out in the country that was built in stages beginning in 1894.  We had lived in the city and felt it would be a good idea to move to the country.  Anyway, after about a year of looking at “out in the country” properties, we found this one.  I liked it at first sight.  Being young and strong (but not overly bright), I underestimated what I was getting into in regards to the amount of work and money this place needed.  But, like I said, when you are young, there is that feeling of invincibility…that feeling of “Yea, I can do that…piece of cake”.  Kinda’ like that saying “ask a teenager, they know everything”. <\/p>\n

Anyway, I am not complaining.  I have actually enjoyed my life here and the work I have put into the place.  There is a sense of pride and accomplishment when you step back and say “wow, was I really able to do that!”  I really enjoy the projects (once I start them).  One of my biggest struggles is getting started.  Often I will come up with reasons why a particular project is too hard (too expensive, beyond my skill level, too busy…whatever).  But, after my wife plants the seed in my head, and after all my initial resistance, I begin to mull it over, research it, ask lots of questions…then I get started.<\/p>\n

This old house was an obvious, very rundown, handyman special.  It had very minimal electricity, no heat, no insulation, sagging floors & ceilings, and many other shortfalls.  In order to get the bank to even give us a mortgage on the place we had to first upgrade the electric to a 200A service in order to install necessary heating.  <\/p>\n

Over the 28 years we have been here, the projects have been many…and ongoing.<\/p>\n

I often tell people that I live in the projects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My latest project has been to finally tackle one last unfinished room in the house.  This is an upstairs bedroom with a seriously sagging floor and ceiling along with failing plaster.  The floor & ceiling both sagged about 4″ to the center of the room in a saucer like manner.  If you placed a marble anywhere along the perimeter it would quickly roll to the center.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, I will explain the reasons behind the bowed floor along with how I dealt with it.  Until then…<\/span><\/p>\n

Pictures of the upstairs bedroom project <\/i><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First…A little history. Back in 1985 my wife and I and our 5 children (at the time) purchased an old farm house out in the country that was built in stages beginning in 1894.  We had lived in the city and felt it would be a good idea to move to the country.  Anyway, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-handyman","category-hindrances","category-home","category-remodeling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/joists2.jpg?fit=577%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/this-old-farmhouse\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":0},"title":"This Old Farmhouse","author":"Ilona","date":"September 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We bought this old farmhouse about 25 years ago. It was our second house, and second effort at renovation (the first was an old Craftsman style house in the city). I started out very \"purist\" when we moved here, but I think that was probably a wasted good intention. As\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/the-slavedriver-aka-the-wife\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":1},"title":"The Slavedriver: AKA The Wife","author":"Ilona","date":"June 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Reposted from an old Ilona's Garden Journal post.I don't know how it is at other people's houses, but at my house I am the idea person\/slavedriver. That is right..... they run when they see me coming. All except that poor guy, AKA my husband, who has nowhere to run. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "projects"","block_context":{"text":"projects","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/projects\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/old-inhabitants\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":2},"title":"Old Inhabitants","author":"Ilona","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I tend to have many asides when I tell the tales of the house and the renovation, but I thought you might be entertained by a few stories about former inhabitants of the home. In my 'Flooring' post I didn't fully explain the story of the reservoir. I had met\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "old houses"","block_context":{"text":"old houses","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/old-houses\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/continuation-of-old-project-building-a-trellis-arbor-and-fence\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":3},"title":"Continuation of old project: building a trellis arbor and fence","author":"Ilona","date":"June 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Really, the Handyman has had a continual stream of projects since we moved here twenty or so years ago. Of course there was the the pouting that took place for, oh I don't know, five years? I know you will read this, but you know it is so. That was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fending"","block_context":{"text":"fending","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/category\/fending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/this-weeks-accomplishments\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":4},"title":"This weeks accomplishments","author":"Ilona","date":"April 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes it is easy to feel like you are not making much progress if you don't occasionally look back at what you have accomplished. In other words, it is a good idea to periodically take your eyes off all the work that needs done (the \"to do list\") and look\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/this-weeks-accomplishments\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/more-on-the-exterior\/","url_meta":{"origin":8,"position":5},"title":"More on the Exterior","author":"Ilona","date":"September 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I got tired of editing that last post, and somehow the edits got lost anyway, so we get a new post for the info!The primer my husband used was Bins Primer, and he used a DuraCoat paint over that. It still isn't 100%, but looks good to my eye.How did\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/09\/Kitwork.0.jpg?fit=435%2C323&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homegardencompanion.com\/house\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}