Sistered joists, sure...but sistered walls?
We spent much of this weekend doing more grunt work upstairs...today it was reinforcing an existing wall with new 2x4s.
Why did we have to do this at all? The original builder made a rather strange decision when building the original hallway...
Once we'd torn out the plaster and lathe in the hallway and bathroom, we realized that this particular wall was framed running the 2x4s 90-degrees askew. You can see what we mean in this closeup of a few of the boards:
We have no idea why they would have done this. The only benefit we were able to determine is that it made the hallway or the bath 2 inches wider...not that anyone would notice. The downside of the approach is that some of the boards bowed over the years. (90 years)
So, we decided to reinforce the wall by adding back the typical 2 inches...which we did by "sistering" the entire wall.
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Comments
Our previous home, a 1936 Tudor in St. Paul, had a wall where this was done as well. I think the main reason was to save those few inches of space. Either that or they were just messing with future remodelers.
Come to think of it, some of the walls in our current 1909 home in Minneapolis also were done this way, so it may have been fairly common practice.
Posted by: Nick | July 18, 2004 8:08 PM
Those 2 inches could be very important when moving large furniture in or out. Especially on the second floor.....POPS"30"
Posted by: POPS | July 19, 2004 11:31 AM
From our planning the bottleneck is going to be the stairway rather than the hallway. We're still trying to get our head around how we're going to get our king-sized mattress up the stairway.
Posted by: Aaron | July 19, 2004 11:36 AM
Provided that you have the height, the mattress will bend. The box spring is another matter. Manufacturers now make two part box springs so that they can be hauled up stairwells in older houses. It will look like you have placed a mattress on two larger than twin size box springs. I just went through this with the sister-in-law and her queen size bed. As for your wall. From your photographs, it appears that this was not a supporting wall, but instead a partition. The thickness would not have been important and it probably bowed under it's own weight. Is the wall original to the house or was it put in later? Is the bathroom original or did the property once have an outhouse?
Posted by: Gary | July 19, 2004 4:26 PM
I too think this was common. Our 1918 chicago bungalow has the twisted 2x4s too.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 17, 2004 3:40 AM