When You Have a Crooked House

In the nursery rhyme, the crooked man with his crooked cat and mouse didn't mind his crooked house. But outside of children's stories, homes are supposed to have level floors, flat walls and plumb ceilings, so crookedness can be a bit more problematic.

As structures age, they often shift or settle. That shows up as a dip in the floor, a sag in a window casing, a slope in a ceiling or cracks in a wall. It can be so subtle that a homeowner will notice only a wobble in a table, or dramatic enough that the floor level changes by several inches from one end of the house to the other.

Because cabinets and window treatments, doors and sofas are constructed to work with flat surfaces, a home with slants and slopes can be a challenge for the people who live in it. "When you're out of level, you're always chasing the problem somewhere," said Chris Landis, an architect and principal of Landis Construction, a District design-build firm that frequently works in older homes. "If you level the floor, you may have an issue with the doorways. When you put in your cabinet, you'll notice the crookedness of the windowsill."

Landis said the key to dealing with a home that has settled is to come to terms with how much slant you are willing to live with. If the answer is little to none, renovations, possibly major, can level out-of-plumb surfaces. If the answer is some, there are ways to camouflage a home's imperfections. The final option, of course, is to simply embrace the slanty quirks of an older home. The choice will depend on both budget and aesthetics.

Kelly and Paul Sherman of Capitol Hill chose to renovate. The extensive work on their 100-year-old house allowed them to address some of its sloping floors and ceilings and provided a solution to their more pressing need for a family-friendly layout.

"We wanted more living space," said Kelly, who works for the Environmental Protection Agency. They also wanted access to their basement from inside the house. The basement had been a rental unit, but Paul, editor and publisher of Potomac Tech Wire, uses it for his office and had grown tired of walking outside to get there.

Architect and fellow Capitol Hill resident Stephen Lawlor of Lawlor Architects in the District crafted a plan to add to the back and upper stories of the house. That created a layout Lawlor called "much more appropriate to family life." He also found solutions to the home's slants and slopes while maintaining its historic feel.

Lawlor said a bearing wall had settled, causing a slope in the ceiling of the first level and the floor of the second. The Shermans' house, like many in this area's oldest neighborhoods, was built without the footings that typically form the base of a building's foundation. Lawlor said this lack of footings, or inadequate footings, are among the major reasons that homes settle.

Another cause is that older homes may have undersize joists, the wooden supports underneath a floor. Over time, the joists succumb to gravity or are undermined by water or insect damage. Problems worsen when homeowners build additions without adding the proper reinforcements or when the heavy appliances and materials used in modern homes tax the structure.

In addition, Landis said, many homes are built on landfill that is not compacted, so the fill compacts over time and the structure settles.

The first step Lawlor took when working with the Shermans was to assess the structural soundness of their home, something architects and contractors say is crucial before undertaking any project or if a homeowner is seeing changes. A door that no longer closes, wall cracks that are growing wider or a fixture tilting more over time can be signs of trouble. They should be evaluated by an architect or contractor experienced with older homes.

Beginning with the dirt foundation in the basement, every floor in the Shermans' house was replaced, which allowed the contractors to level the joists on the upper levels and even out the floors. "One way to look at old houses in a new way is to start with the floor," Lawlor said. In the Shermans' case, he said, the new bamboo floors throughout give a unifying feel.