Thursday, January 13, 2011

This Old "Sloping" House

It's a known fact that a lot of older homes and buildings (especially ones pushing 100 years and older) are going to have issues with being level. I'm not sure if it's because of the foundations settling over time or maybe simply the construction standards back then.

Well, the upstairs of our home has a noticeably "non-horizontal" feeling to it. Below is a picture of the stairs going up to the kids' rooms. It's a little hard to tell in this picture as I think I was tilting my camera to be even with the stairs but if you look close, you can see they slant to the right.....

You can also see how scuffed and worn they are. It's one of the kids' chores to wipe down the stairs but it's so hard to really get the built up dust down in those old grooves.....

I thought a quick, new coat of paint would freshen things up a bit. Looks a lot cleaner now. Here, you see the slant is more noticeable.....


Maybe we should have put the next couple of pictures up as videos but I think you'll get the idea. We have a great ol' time putting a marble down at the side of the room and then watching it immediately take off, building up speed to go clear across the room. Here, the kids demonstrate for the camera after their showers and before going to bed last night.....

Ellie adds the face for dramatic effect....very unlike her. :-)


So, are we going to fix the issue? Heck no. Dustin brought up the possibility one time and we talked about it......... for about 3 1/2 seconds. We quickly came to the conclusion that there would be no reason to fix except for aesthetics. Besides, it's part of the charm of living in a 100 year old home, right?

3 comments:

  1. DON'T CHANGE THAT SLOPE! It is SO part of the charm of the place. I still have happy memories of my Grandma Denney's narrow, uneven, rustic stairs. I'm sure I wouldn't remember them if they had been perfect.

    How fun to have your floor be the place for a marble race! Go with it!

    Love, Aunt Sue

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  2. You can have marble races! When I was a kid, I would have roly-poly flicking contests with my mom across my dad's shop floor. It is just what it sounds like: you flick a roly-poly bug across the floor. They curl up and roll so nicely, and you can see who can flick theirs the farthest. I hope you do not have to do this with roly-polies, however. You can use marbles or balls. Have fun!

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  3. Thanks for the different take. I too live in a 100-or-so year old Victoria detached. The house slopes a bit, most notable in the kitchen, and on the staircases, but we've updated things, it's comfortable, tidy and it too can have marble races. The older adult children don't approve, though I'd be press to say the slope was 10 degrees more than horizontal. My Granddaughter finds it mysterious and fantasy like. The undertaking of repairing the staircase would be daunting, but appreciating that like wrinkles those slants have been earned overtime.

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