When You Have a Crooked House

Lawlor found an innovative solution to the sloping ceiling by adding a dropped wood ceiling with recessed lighting where the original house meets the addition. "Dropping the ceiling was a way to manipulate the ceiling line, join the new with the old and conceal the leveling we did," Lawlor said. "The eye sees that rather than the different levels."

The architect also added a horizontal trim line, called a datum, three-quarters of the way up the living room wall. "It has the effect of bringing the scale of the room down," he said.

And by lining up the datum with another architectural element in the room, such as the top of the doorways or window casings, the technique can draw the eye to a straight line and away from an out-of-whack one at the ceiling.

The home still feels like an older one, just modernized, what Lawlor called the best of both worlds. For a more "machine-done" feel in an older home, he said, significant leveling is often needed. It can include taking out the stairs, leveling all the floors and lowering the ceiling. The right choice for any given homeowner is highly subjective, he said.

For homeowners without the budget or the desire for far-reaching renovations, much can be done to diminish the appearance of tilts and dips in walls, ceilings and floors. "It's like choosing clothes," said interior designer Nan Knisley of Nan Knisley Designs in Alexandria. "You emphasize the positive and deemphasize the negative."

Paint choice is especially important in an older home. "The simplest thing is to be careful about the sheen of the paint," Knisley said. "A high-gloss finish is going to show everything, draw the eye to imperfections."

Teresa Buchanan of Designline in Annapolis also cautioned that bold color combinations are unforgiving to lines that aren't crisp. "The more pronounced the problem, the more uniform the paint colors and finishes should be," she said. "The objective is to minimize the visual contrast between the wall and ceiling line and millwork -- any point where the lines intersect."

The thoughtful placement of rugs and artwork, the right window treatments and the use of softer lamplight as opposed to harsh overhead fixtures can also go a long way in concealing imperfections.

Homeowners with out-of-plumb surfaces will often encounter the most trouble, however, when they try to add a built-in element such as a bookcase or cabinetry. When something vertical comes up to meet the ceiling or a windowsill, an uneven surface is going to show itself.

But it's not hopeless. Gregory Hrones, owner of General Repair Services, a Beltsville contractor, stressed that a skilled installer can adjust toe kicks, the platforms that cabinets sit on, to work with an uneven floor and can adjust the moldings at the top of a cabinet or bookcase to make it flush against the ceiling. On the high end, custom pieces can be built to work within a specific space. Hrones's company crafts doors and cabinets to fit an individual home, taking all the slopes and slants into consideration.

When working with older homes, Landis always returns to the importance of determining the owner's vision for the home and talking about what can realistically be achieved. "It's all about establishing an understanding early on about how we can minimize these problems and manage customer expectations," he said.

Simply stated, a house with some years on it is never going to look perfect. "If you've chosen to live in an old house," Knisley said, "the quirks are part of the charm and character."

Irene Mayer, who oversees renovations, contractors and related work for the historic Tabard Inn near Dupont Circle, could not agree more. "This is the way nature is," Mayer said. "I like to live with the warts and the problems."

Mayer has worked at the 40-room inn for 25 years and said there is no need to fight its "historic bones" or out-of-plumb staircases and surfaces. The rooms are painted in deep reds, blues, yellows and greens, often with contrasting ceiling and trim colors that show each dip and slant.

"That's part of the charm," Mayer said. "Everything exactly perfect is sort of boring. It's a bit like having your face lifted until your kneecaps are up around your ears. Does that make you more attractive?"

The inn's three buildings, built between 1890 and 1910, have been updated through the years to upgrade the bathrooms and give things a more "today feel," but Mayer said the look is decidedly more grandma's house than boutique hotel. "If you have a hole in your roof, you fix it," she said. "If you have a stable wall that's a little lower on one end than the other, you live with it."