Jacked up

Our house is crooked. I think that's pretty normal for a structure built 120 years ago. But since we are taking out the walls, we have the opportunity to try to straighten things out a little.

Remember what the attic stairs looked like back when we had walls? No? OK, here. See how the angles aren't really 90 degrees in that doorway? That's because the attic stairs are sagging over the front hallway. They're so crooked that the attic door does not close.

So we got out the floor jacks.

This one holds the first floor hallway up and braces the whole contraption from the ground (basement) up.

Then this one sits on top of that. This is the jack that does the lifting.

The next image shows exactly what we are lifting - the attic stairs.

And this last one shows how crooked they were on Day 1, when we set up the jacks.

The above pic also shows some of the dozens of rolls of insulation we've added to the house's exterior walls. It's my hope that we can turn the furnace up past "frigid" to "tepid" once we have the house insulated.

So every couple of days, we've added an inch or so to the first floor's jack. We're now to the point where we can close the attic door - it won't latch, but I don't think it ever will. But there's a definite improvement.

Next up? Bracing the stairs so that they stay in their new upright position.