It’s been a while. There have been projects, and I may post them eventually, but I also thought this was the best way to share the discovery process that is the first step of a new project.
First, some context. This is the dining room, a room in the older, wooden part of the house, looking north through an opening to the family room in the cobblestone section. There is work to be done in this dining room, and we wanted to know if the two sections of the house, what were probably two separate buildings originally, are actually attached.
We started by opening the wall. Odd that the wood studs holding the lathe and plaster are at an angle, but there is always something to learn when we start a project. In this case, we wanted to understand the wall structure so we could potentially attach the two buildings and find out what was holding the stone wall up above the opening – hopefully something structural.
Starting in a corner, I took off the plaster. The lathe is split, not sawn.
Going deeper, I found why the studs were at an angle. They are not structural at all but are just between the beam at floor level and the beam at ceiling level.
It’s an 8″ x 8″ beam and still looks good and straight. The doorway, however, has dropped. We noticed that when we moved in, and in fact I measured it at the time to make sure it wasn’t still dropping. It’s not, but now it’s clear what’s going on:
The post next to the doorway has dropped. I didn’t open up the floor, though that will be part of the upcoming project. It’s likely there is a beam along the floor, but it’s resting very close to the ground so has probably weakened and sagged in the middle, bringing the door frame down with it.
Likewise, looking at the joists going from that beam across the dining room ceiling, it’s clear that the weight above has been too much. There’s a whole bathroom that was added above the middle of the dining room, and it doesn’t look like the ceiling joists were sized to hold it. They’ve split, which is why the floor above slopes so much.
The real question was if there was anything holding the rock wall up above the door.
There is! I can’t tell if it’s stone or concrete, but it’s solid. So, there is something above the doorway holding up the rock wall. It makes sense that there is, but it’s reassuring to find it.
Sorry to see what you have found. It is my hope you can repair the small amount of damage that I can see from these photos. My Aunts the Graeper Sisters bought the home in 1929, and lived there for many. It was sold to my Sister Carol Doty in 1974,I spent many days and nights there. Philip D Rupert Jr