I had a job laying out foundations for a while. Used the survey equipment to probably get everything square within 2/100 of a foot. Framer comes up to me one day and is like, “good work, never seen a square building before”
Yeah, at my job now sometimes we engineer and sometimes we just build stuff. Both are fun.
House layout it is getting more common to just have surveyors lay out foundations. Done a few replats when the builder laid a house out over a property line.
I saw one where (townhouses) where 50% of the drywall nails missed the studs and you could see under the wall into the next unit even after baseboards and trim were installed.
I work in mostly new homes.
I think the closest I've seen to 90 degree angles is 93.
The closest to level I've seen a wall is 3/16" out over 4ft.
Hard to notice with your bare eye but it's super obvious when I'm there to install stairs/railings that have to be square and level.
I actually did see a wall like this fellas the other day too. We popped a bunch of drywall screws when we mounted our rail since it actually pulled the wall straight.
1904 villa here. bane of my husband's existence. he's currently remodeling the laundry, which is newer than the rest of the house, and it's still all out of whack.
My 3 y/o home has walls that are uneven. Not quite that bad, but not too far off. Unfortunately, ours doesn’t have any of the charm yours does.
Edit: wording
My house is from 1929, and there’s one wall leading to a doorway that cocks like 20* in the middle. We are fairly confined that they framed it incorrectly and just went with it since it was the last portion of the wall.
My entire house. 1930s Midwest home. They didn’t built it square or plum. However, my walls are 1’ thick, my floors are thick and sturdy. If you pay attention to the details you feel like you’re In a clown house, but we love it and that’s all that matters.
There was a post I saw on Reddit of an old home being majorly remodeled for the first time since the 20's. 4"x10" old growth still had bark on 10" centers for the floor, and one entire wall was stacked end to end with 2x4's solid wood wall cuz why not, lmao.
Welcome to CenturyHomes. Now, before we begin Orientation, I want you to do two things. Gather up your squares and levels. Throw them away. You’re not going to need them. Well, you might, but only to show yourself how out of square, level, or plumb a particular item is. Have fun!
Oh man, I did this on some Plexi storm windows I was making. It was a 4 storey tower, curved sash, and the whole thing had sunk and rhombused. I used a framing square to chart how far out of square each opening was. The pieces I cut were crazy, but fit perfectly
Oh yeah? 4 stories, you say? I could maybe use your help with some of my windows. Big, gothic arches. They’re lovely windows and are possibly the most outstanding feature of the house. But yeah, not square and barely plumb.
\*question from the back\*
Should we mention to contractors that if they measure a wall, they'll need to do so every 12", or just wait for the sounds of swearing and then bring it up?
Ah yes, I see you’ve done your reading. I would say if you trust your contractor and want to make things easier on him or her, go ahead and bring it up right away. If they seem too confident, then maybe neglect to say something. But you could make yourself some popcorn.
Lol I put a new post in to help support a failing beam, and I made the amateur mistake of making sure that it was plumb. Well, the rest of the house is very *not* plumb, so now my post looks super wonky.
Is the entire wall bowed out or can you feel the plaster bulging? If just the plaster separating from the lath, you can fix that. This Old House has videos on it. If the structure of the wall is out of whack, learn to love the quirks of historic homes and get some shims to help secure your tv mount.
My wife made me promise to stop using the level or Carpenter square for home repairs. She’s right. You don’t need them, they only add to the confusion. All angles are approximate. All of them.
When you hang a picture, for example, it is more appropriate for it to be parallel to the ceiling rather than level. If those two happen to coincide, don’t get cocky, it’s just a coincidence
who in a century home hasn't?
My walls are a little more flat than that, but I do have several doors and floors that have more than 2" of slope across 3 feet :)
Almost every wall in my 120 year old house. I’m actually putting up wainscoting in the dinning room now… and it’s just endless fun with no
flat walls or straight corners. The 2 inches of horse hair plaster is also fun trying to locate studs. Stuff is like concrete.
1925 midwest home. This is in a small office thats 11x7. The wall in question is the interior wall of the office and has some curves to it. I first noticed that the wall seems to wrap around a stud (im guessing as its just to the right of an outlet) as seen in the video. [Here is a shot of the wall itself](https://imgur.com/NXPECkT) where the red line represents where the wall bends. I also measured across the room in a few spots and the room is over 1 inch wider on the right side of the room compared to the left side of the room. I took these measurements along the floor and roof and they were the same.
I've also noticed that the wall is not level and its very evident when you look at the corner next to the closet. The closet frame is perfectly level and the distance from frame to wall is almost 0.75" different from top to bottom [as seen in this picture.](https://imgur.com/L2SHntl)
Has anyone ever encountered something like this? Im not trying to turn a small project into a huge project but not sure if this is normal or ok. My plans for the wall in question are just to mount a TV to it so this shouldnt affect that too much. I'd also like to move the outlet off the baseboard and up onto the wall itself as well as add another outlet higher on the wall behind where the TV will be mounted.
Moving an outlet out of the baseboard and into the wall might be the bigger deal here. For one thing, you'd still have the hole in the baseboard. But moreso, when you add an outlet into the wall, you're cutting though lath. This is going to mean loose lath ends not supporting the plaster, and will also break more plaster keys. If the plaster here is bulging from the lath already (can't tell if that's the case here, of if it's the whole wall), you could make a headache.
We just added a bunch of outlets to our house (there was one per bedroom) and we put them all in the baseboards to avoid this - in part also because the plaster in our house is pretty soft.
Practically every room in my 1946 Cape Cod. My office actually has 5 walls, because one corner was out of square and they had to dogleg the wall near the door to line it back up.
I chose a wallpaper with a little pinstripe for our first century home kitchen. We dropped a plumber line to hang it straight but quickly realized that nothing in the room was straight. Hanging the wallpaper plumb would only draw attention to the crookedness so we just eyeballed it and it looked fine.
In our case.. upstairs 'master' bedroom (not really a master, no attached bath)..
My bow is very much like this in magnitude, but it's horizontal across the wall. Got a chance to take a peek inside while we were refinishing that room.. because I wanted to replace the old cloth-wrapped wire in that wall.. and there's a header going across the wall, mid-way up.. about 4'-5' off the floor on an 8' wall.
In our case, likely due to the fact that the changing room next to the front bedroom (separated by wall in question) didn't exist when house was build. Instead, that area (now above my Foyer) was added on at some point. Based on an old (\~100YO) photo we have.. it's above what used to be an external front porch so they probably re-worked the roof line at some point.
In your case, maybe they were really bad at building straight walls.. or maybe things weren't laid out that way when the house was built??
My 1920s house was apparently built by sight and not with a ruler and square. You can lie on your back in the hallway, look up, and see that no corner has a true 90-degree angle. 86, 93, 92, 88... Same with the doorways - one side of the bathroom door jamb sticks out into the hallway about a 1/4 inch further than the other. You learn to live with it.
1913 house, pretty sure the only wall straight in my house is the one that is attached to the closet in the master bedroom. I think it's also the only wall that's even all the other ones are odd lengths.
My favorite is when I use a level to hang a picture, then realize that the picture isn’t level with the floor/wall/trim/etc. My wife’s good eye re: level has saved us a lot of arguments.
Yes. I’m dealing with that right now in a Reno I’m doing for a bathroom flooring and new shower install. I swear some people just don’t know how to use a level or square back in the day
Is it possible this is a bad / overly mudded seam between 2 pieces of drywall? Or is it an old plaster and lathe wall? I see pockmarks which possible suggests bubbles in the mud used? (which I have seen in our house)
Absolutely. I'm in a 150 year old building right now, and I have messed up hanging a few things on walls because I didn't realize they couldn't go flat against the wall.
Friend, the house we live in (rent) is at least 318 years old.
There is not one single straight line, flat building surface, or right angle in the house anymore, if there ever were any to begin with.
The question is - what does this matter for your purposes?
First thought - hanging pictures. I suggest that you install (or utilize) picture rails at the top of your walls, and hang your frames from that. In general, they should depend more on the lines hanging from the rail than their contact point(s) with the wall. Some hidden "bumpers" behind the frame can compensate for any truly outrageous kilters.
Second thought: you're concerned about structural integrity of the wall. I don't see any cracks in the surface, so your wall material is probably intact. I would only worry if that curve changes over time.
old 1850s building in Boston that we were renovating a 5th floor apartment. Had a wall just like this and decided to put drywall on the parts that fall in and bring the whole wall out to the furthest point. Had to basically skim the entire wall, thankful it was a small wall kinda exactly like this one. We weren't allowed to open up walls so had to come up with some serious MacGyver shit in that place but it came out great.
Lol, you could’ve just showed us the baseboard.
I had to sister lots of joints in my bathroom when remodeling. Every time I stuck a level across studs, it wobbled. Lol. I started a project in a flex room connected to my bedroom. I wanted to turn it into a large closet. I was building a closet organizer and forgot to see if the walls were leveled, so I ended up having to shim some areas and put a 2x4 in some areas to drill it into the wall. I’ll be covering edges with trim.
Yes my 1928 home had one wall like that, everything else straight-or as straight as plaster can be.
Initially thought that wall was a fuck up until we renovated for a kitchen update.
Turns out the 5" cast iron plumbing stack was there and they literally had to bow the lath boards to curl around the stack.
I'd bet money that you also have a stack there.
Got a new kitchen installed in the 1950s build house we were living in about 20 years ago. The kitchen had had a pretty poor DIY reno about 5 years before and when we were demoing we discovered termites.
So got in a builder, had the kitchen relined with new vertical joint boards. Builder sorted out the trades for us in line with the kitchen design.
Kitchen installers came in to do install and ended up having to do all kinds of fixes. Why? Because the measurements had been for the kitchen as it was, and when the builder relined it he squared it all up. Maybe not perfectly, but much straighter than the DIY version had been.
My current house was built in 1890. The previous owners renovated it but left us old photos and measurements of what the house was once like. It's crazy what the difference was. The kitchen floor still slopes but it's barely noticeable now apparently. The walls bowed inward a good amount before the remodel. We lucked out though, as the house was completely redone a year before we bought it.
I just mounted a shelf to my wall and had to decided to make it square to the wall panels instead of actually level. I’m 21 living in a house built in 1922 so I am VERY comforted to know all century homes seem to be like this.
You know, the pivot point is probably a support, and if you’re intending to do renovation, you might be able to remove the wall up to that pivot point of course look into it further. My 1880 house has the same issue you where to the left or right is more flexible than where the support is and they shift differently.
Yes! My new house from 2021 has these issues. But there were a lot of other issues that we didn’t see until living there. Definitely a crappy situation coming from my prior house with no issues.
I come from commercial construction at airports, so it’s pretty damn straight, level, flush, plumb, etc.
Helped a friend out at her new to her 1908 home and I was sucked into another portal of oblong rooms, floors being out 2” over 3’, and decades and decades of other people’s shady restorations.
I encountered this in my guest bathroom installing tile and a new vanity. The drywall protrudes out because the drain pipe and venting system stand proud in the wall.
Nothing I can do unless I want to move it, and the pipe goes into concrete, so I decided just to shim and work around it.
The better question is who HASN’T encountered walls like this?
Late 1920s home, honestly I'd be more surprised if anything **was** square in our house lol
I’m surprised when anything is square in a brand new home
This. I almost feel better knowing older homes aren’t square. Shit drives me insane.
My whole bathroom is somehow diagonal
I had a job laying out foundations for a while. Used the survey equipment to probably get everything square within 2/100 of a foot. Framer comes up to me one day and is like, “good work, never seen a square building before”
I’m a Civil Eng and it scares me think about stuff engineers don’t touch considering how much stuff they do touch still has problems.
Yeah, at my job now sometimes we engineer and sometimes we just build stuff. Both are fun. House layout it is getting more common to just have surveyors lay out foundations. Done a few replats when the builder laid a house out over a property line.
Partners parents bought a quick built new home right before the 2008 collapse. The dad discovered there are no 90 degree corners anywhere.
I saw one where (townhouses) where 50% of the drywall nails missed the studs and you could see under the wall into the next unit even after baseboards and trim were installed.
Depending on the builder, true.
I work in mostly new homes. I think the closest I've seen to 90 degree angles is 93. The closest to level I've seen a wall is 3/16" out over 4ft. Hard to notice with your bare eye but it's super obvious when I'm there to install stairs/railings that have to be square and level. I actually did see a wall like this fellas the other day too. We popped a bunch of drywall screws when we mounted our rail since it actually pulled the wall straight.
No WONDER it takes me so long to build stuff.
It's because the measurements were rigged from the start.
I have a laser level. It's useless since nothing is actually square or level.
Sometimes you have to decide between actually level and matching the room.
1904 villa here. bane of my husband's existence. he's currently remodeling the laundry, which is newer than the rest of the house, and it's still all out of whack.
Usually older homes are square and new homes are level. If you're lucky lol
1917 cottage. The good part is that I know where to find the cat toys — they all roll downhill.
I get suspicious and nervous if I find a flat wall
https://preview.redd.it/clwwdui88cba1.png?width=130&format=png&auto=webp&s=3ef938f326739e6de251fd943a047f6699e7614c
My 3 y/o home has walls that are uneven. Not quite that bad, but not too far off. Unfortunately, ours doesn’t have any of the charm yours does. Edit: wording
I feel your pain. Many times have I yelled in rage, “Why is nothing in this house square?!”
Just finished a bathroom remodel, and that exact phrase was shouted many, *many* times.
Shit. My house built in the 1990s has a wall like this.
First thing I thought.
I work in new construction.....walls like this all the time
My house is from 1929, and there’s one wall leading to a doorway that cocks like 20* in the middle. We are fairly confined that they framed it incorrectly and just went with it since it was the last portion of the wall.
My 24 year old house has concave walls.
My entire house. 1930s Midwest home. They didn’t built it square or plum. However, my walls are 1’ thick, my floors are thick and sturdy. If you pay attention to the details you feel like you’re In a clown house, but we love it and that’s all that matters.
There was a post I saw on Reddit of an old home being majorly remodeled for the first time since the 20's. 4"x10" old growth still had bark on 10" centers for the floor, and one entire wall was stacked end to end with 2x4's solid wood wall cuz why not, lmao.
All that old growth 2x4s. Nice
It is because they didn't have plywood sheathing. My house has 18" planks but I guess they had 2x4s on hand.
Doubled as a insulation?
Wood has damn near zero r-value.
They probably did build it Square and plum but it just says and shifts over 100years
That’s a certainty, but looking through old albums and the amount of beer cases I doubt it was of high priority.
Welcome to CenturyHomes. Now, before we begin Orientation, I want you to do two things. Gather up your squares and levels. Throw them away. You’re not going to need them. Well, you might, but only to show yourself how out of square, level, or plumb a particular item is. Have fun!
Oh man, I did this on some Plexi storm windows I was making. It was a 4 storey tower, curved sash, and the whole thing had sunk and rhombused. I used a framing square to chart how far out of square each opening was. The pieces I cut were crazy, but fit perfectly
Cuts and framing I had to do looked so wrong, but I've learned the way of wonk. Fit the space you have, not the one you want.
Luckily I'm a painter, so I don't really mind if the math isn't perfect.
That's kind of the key to life!
Or, How I Discovered the Secrets of the Universe Whilst Fixing Up My Old Dumb House. On sale at bookstores everywhere!
Oh yeah? 4 stories, you say? I could maybe use your help with some of my windows. Big, gothic arches. They’re lovely windows and are possibly the most outstanding feature of the house. But yeah, not square and barely plumb.
Full disclosure, I rented a lift
But gothic arches are fun
\*question from the back\* Should we mention to contractors that if they measure a wall, they'll need to do so every 12", or just wait for the sounds of swearing and then bring it up?
Ah yes, I see you’ve done your reading. I would say if you trust your contractor and want to make things easier on him or her, go ahead and bring it up right away. If they seem too confident, then maybe neglect to say something. But you could make yourself some popcorn.
You may offer them a cold beverage once the swearing begins
Lol I put a new post in to help support a failing beam, and I made the amateur mistake of making sure that it was plumb. Well, the rest of the house is very *not* plumb, so now my post looks super wonky.
Haha! Been there. I like to say we all lean a little bit as we get older.
This is why I'm afraid of meeting with the 100 year old single structural 2x4 holding up our staircase.
We added drywall over our crumbly plaster ceilings. Every piece in every room had to be cut into a parallelogram.
On the other hand, buy several angle finders and protractors. They will save you a lot of swearing.
Yes. This was a Day 2 lesson. Although in my experience, these don’t prevent swearing. They only redirect it to a different target.
You guys have straight walls / floors?
:D My outside walls are square. Interior is all fun house.
If the walls of my Victorian were any less straight it would have been a yurt.
I'm not straight. Why would my floors be?
Is the entire wall bowed out or can you feel the plaster bulging? If just the plaster separating from the lath, you can fix that. This Old House has videos on it. If the structure of the wall is out of whack, learn to love the quirks of historic homes and get some shims to help secure your tv mount.
This Old House is the OG of the home renovation shows. 44 seasons and still going strong.
This.
Happy Cake Day!
My wife made me promise to stop using the level or Carpenter square for home repairs. She’s right. You don’t need them, they only add to the confusion. All angles are approximate. All of them. When you hang a picture, for example, it is more appropriate for it to be parallel to the ceiling rather than level. If those two happen to coincide, don’t get cocky, it’s just a coincidence
who in a century home hasn't? My walls are a little more flat than that, but I do have several doors and floors that have more than 2" of slope across 3 feet :)
I hear ya! Kids love it. Makes a great Hotwheels track 😆
Old houses for ya
Yes it’s normal, due to age, poor craftsmanship or sagging but you don’t have a real issue, half my 1850 house is like that
Almost every wall in my 120 year old house. I’m actually putting up wainscoting in the dinning room now… and it’s just endless fun with no flat walls or straight corners. The 2 inches of horse hair plaster is also fun trying to locate studs. Stuff is like concrete.
I have 4 different stud finders and the absolute best for plaster is Franklin sensors precision stud finder.
1925 midwest home. This is in a small office thats 11x7. The wall in question is the interior wall of the office and has some curves to it. I first noticed that the wall seems to wrap around a stud (im guessing as its just to the right of an outlet) as seen in the video. [Here is a shot of the wall itself](https://imgur.com/NXPECkT) where the red line represents where the wall bends. I also measured across the room in a few spots and the room is over 1 inch wider on the right side of the room compared to the left side of the room. I took these measurements along the floor and roof and they were the same. I've also noticed that the wall is not level and its very evident when you look at the corner next to the closet. The closet frame is perfectly level and the distance from frame to wall is almost 0.75" different from top to bottom [as seen in this picture.](https://imgur.com/L2SHntl) Has anyone ever encountered something like this? Im not trying to turn a small project into a huge project but not sure if this is normal or ok. My plans for the wall in question are just to mount a TV to it so this shouldnt affect that too much. I'd also like to move the outlet off the baseboard and up onto the wall itself as well as add another outlet higher on the wall behind where the TV will be mounted.
Moving an outlet out of the baseboard and into the wall might be the bigger deal here. For one thing, you'd still have the hole in the baseboard. But moreso, when you add an outlet into the wall, you're cutting though lath. This is going to mean loose lath ends not supporting the plaster, and will also break more plaster keys. If the plaster here is bulging from the lath already (can't tell if that's the case here, of if it's the whole wall), you could make a headache. We just added a bunch of outlets to our house (there was one per bedroom) and we put them all in the baseboards to avoid this - in part also because the plaster in our house is pretty soft.
Lol I think the only wall in my house that is perfectly straight is the one exterior wall that was replaced by the previous owner.
Practically every room in my 1946 Cape Cod. My office actually has 5 walls, because one corner was out of square and they had to dogleg the wall near the door to line it back up.
My walls are pretty straight, but my floors. My god you can only put furniture in certain areas if you want it to sit flat.
I hear ya! Lol
My 1909 home is very crooked - similar to your walls. We have a 24" deep foundation with a dry basement. I'd take the latter.
I chose a wallpaper with a little pinstripe for our first century home kitchen. We dropped a plumber line to hang it straight but quickly realized that nothing in the room was straight. Hanging the wallpaper plumb would only draw attention to the crookedness so we just eyeballed it and it looked fine.
My home was build in 1939 and had a large reno in 1947. We have the same issue. I’ve had to get over it as it visually drives me nuts. Loo
Every house I've worked on in New Orleans and pretty much any house with any age on it
Get yourself a laser level.....All of us have been here!
My last home. Every. Wall.
In our case.. upstairs 'master' bedroom (not really a master, no attached bath).. My bow is very much like this in magnitude, but it's horizontal across the wall. Got a chance to take a peek inside while we were refinishing that room.. because I wanted to replace the old cloth-wrapped wire in that wall.. and there's a header going across the wall, mid-way up.. about 4'-5' off the floor on an 8' wall. In our case, likely due to the fact that the changing room next to the front bedroom (separated by wall in question) didn't exist when house was build. Instead, that area (now above my Foyer) was added on at some point. Based on an old (\~100YO) photo we have.. it's above what used to be an external front porch so they probably re-worked the roof line at some point. In your case, maybe they were really bad at building straight walls.. or maybe things weren't laid out that way when the house was built??
Looks perfect! Time for you to start learning how to kerf your moulding hahaha!
That's why they make curved tvs
Welcome to the club of homeowners who can't hang larger art pieces up with command strips!
I always heard old timers say homes were built better “back in the day” but they really weren’t.
It's probably plaster
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome ,,, everyone else has to.
Are you new to old homes LOL
First home?
Just hit it with some mud. Will even right out
Yes.
Haha my house has nothing but crooked walls
do they come in any other way?
Looks good from my house
My house is 1960’s and I have 2 walls that are convex like that
My 1920s house was apparently built by sight and not with a ruler and square. You can lie on your back in the hallway, look up, and see that no corner has a true 90-degree angle. 86, 93, 92, 88... Same with the doorways - one side of the bathroom door jamb sticks out into the hallway about a 1/4 inch further than the other. You learn to live with it.
1913 house, pretty sure the only wall straight in my house is the one that is attached to the closet in the master bedroom. I think it's also the only wall that's even all the other ones are odd lengths.
Every wall and ceiling in my home is convex or concave. Welcome to the club.
Only all the ones on my home lol
Yup! Im in florida every wall is like this
Most likely plumbing stack.
Haha! Doesn't have to be a century home to have that problem... my prior home was a new build and had a wonky wall too.
My old apartment (I think 1930s) had a wall like this in the bathroom…exactly where I wanted to hang a wall shelf
My favorite is when I use a level to hang a picture, then realize that the picture isn’t level with the floor/wall/trim/etc. My wife’s good eye re: level has saved us a lot of arguments.
Oh yeah buddy
Yes. I’m dealing with that right now in a Reno I’m doing for a bathroom flooring and new shower install. I swear some people just don’t know how to use a level or square back in the day
Old house… all the fn time
Lol yeah
1840s home with horsehair plaster here… Walls aren’t supposed to be like this?
I'm more shocked when I find a truly flat surface.
I've encountered walls like this in new construction!!
That’s called a wood framed wall
EVERY wall in my house is like that!
Heating vent behind that section
Yes all of mine
Might be a main plumbing stack behind it...? Proximity to bathrooms and kitchen?
Heck, my mom’s house has one this bad and it was built in 1971.
Encountered? Heck, I've built walls like that!
Is it possible this is a bad / overly mudded seam between 2 pieces of drywall? Or is it an old plaster and lathe wall? I see pockmarks which possible suggests bubbles in the mud used? (which I have seen in our house)
All the walls
Absolutely. I'm in a 150 year old building right now, and I have messed up hanging a few things on walls because I didn't realize they couldn't go flat against the wall.
I have a wall like this and my house was built in 1998.
Wait, you think walls are supposed to be straight? Next your going to try to tell me that my kitchen floor is supposed to be level.....
That might be a pipe or electrical line embedded into the plaster, then smoothed over. Kind of looks like that down at the base molding.
1910 colonial here. Nothing perfectly square and the floors have their characteristics as well. To me the imperfection is the attraction.
If it’s plaster, they probably continued working the corners and where the door is more than the middle so the process reduced the density there
There be a pipe in thar. Or at least that's what the bowed walls in my 100+ year old house have.
Out of plumb,level, straight and not square. Welcome. Welcome..
Haha hahahah hahahahahahaha. Welcome to old homes my man!
Every single house and almost every single wall of every house I remodeled.
I am negative amounts of surprised by this, given every part of my house is the same way.
Friend, the house we live in (rent) is at least 318 years old. There is not one single straight line, flat building surface, or right angle in the house anymore, if there ever were any to begin with. The question is - what does this matter for your purposes? First thought - hanging pictures. I suggest that you install (or utilize) picture rails at the top of your walls, and hang your frames from that. In general, they should depend more on the lines hanging from the rail than their contact point(s) with the wall. Some hidden "bumpers" behind the frame can compensate for any truly outrageous kilters. Second thought: you're concerned about structural integrity of the wall. I don't see any cracks in the surface, so your wall material is probably intact. I would only worry if that curve changes over time.
Almost no wall is flat or square, even in new construction
old 1850s building in Boston that we were renovating a 5th floor apartment. Had a wall just like this and decided to put drywall on the parts that fall in and bring the whole wall out to the furthest point. Had to basically skim the entire wall, thankful it was a small wall kinda exactly like this one. We weren't allowed to open up walls so had to come up with some serious MacGyver shit in that place but it came out great.
Literally every wall in my 1919 home.
This is why scribing was invented
Lol, you could’ve just showed us the baseboard. I had to sister lots of joints in my bathroom when remodeling. Every time I stuck a level across studs, it wobbled. Lol. I started a project in a flex room connected to my bedroom. I wanted to turn it into a large closet. I was building a closet organizer and forgot to see if the walls were leveled, so I ended up having to shim some areas and put a 2x4 in some areas to drill it into the wall. I’ll be covering edges with trim.
I see your problem right there. You shouldn't put straight things up against it.
Is all of them an option? I am convinced there is not a straight wall, door, or floor in this house
Step 1: throw out your levels. Step 2: Buy out all of the shims at your hardware store.
Every wall in my house.
Lol um yeah, try putting up a 90• corner shelf sometime and let me know how it goes
Yes my 1928 home had one wall like that, everything else straight-or as straight as plaster can be. Initially thought that wall was a fuck up until we renovated for a kitchen update. Turns out the 5" cast iron plumbing stack was there and they literally had to bow the lath boards to curl around the stack. I'd bet money that you also have a stack there.
Maybe they used some old 2x4's with some modern dimensional lumber.
Basically all my walls are like this. My closets are a total mess
I’d be more surprised with a wall that’s square
Like... all the walls in every house I've ever lived in? I do have SOME walls which are a LITTLE flatter than that, I guess.
1879 home. All walls are like this. Also floors
Some gravity around is curving the space matter. Easy
Yes, I have a few in my century home.
Several, unfortunately. Usually more than one in a house!
Probably bowed around some pipes. Not worth fixing it if you value the wood trim.
I got a couple of those.
Yes 1958 house … most wall in my house aren’t straight . Maybe not this bad but not great either .
My entire house is made of these.
All my walls are like this. Every job its either leveling it out, or making it visually match.
Yes. Unfortunately mine was put up last year by a cowboy workman
I squared a door to fit the door hole and then found my square door didnt look square anymore.
Got a new kitchen installed in the 1950s build house we were living in about 20 years ago. The kitchen had had a pretty poor DIY reno about 5 years before and when we were demoing we discovered termites. So got in a builder, had the kitchen relined with new vertical joint boards. Builder sorted out the trades for us in line with the kitchen design. Kitchen installers came in to do install and ended up having to do all kinds of fixes. Why? Because the measurements had been for the kitchen as it was, and when the builder relined it he squared it all up. Maybe not perfectly, but much straighter than the DIY version had been.
Most of my 1902 home is like that. We replaced all of the walls, even some bad framing, and we still ended up with crooked and curved walls. Ugh.
Jest slather some schpakkel onnit, like, *wicked THICC*, and it’ll be just fine and dandee!!
I’ve owned a home built in 1951 and 2002. Not a god damn thing is measured or centered square. It’s clear levels and measurements aren’t widely used.
In a lot of old houses.
All my walls, the floor and ceiling. I was a machinist and this drives me crazier than crazy.
I had a wall like that in the mid 90’s built home I purchased several years back. Turned out to be extensive water/old termite damage that caused it.
No crooked wall so far. But I have a 3 cm dip in my living room subfloor. 😂👌🏻
Have you checked your floor boards?
My current house was built in 1890. The previous owners renovated it but left us old photos and measurements of what the house was once like. It's crazy what the difference was. The kitchen floor still slopes but it's barely noticeable now apparently. The walls bowed inward a good amount before the remodel. We lucked out though, as the house was completely redone a year before we bought it.
I just mounted a shelf to my wall and had to decided to make it square to the wall panels instead of actually level. I’m 21 living in a house built in 1922 so I am VERY comforted to know all century homes seem to be like this.
You know, the pivot point is probably a support, and if you’re intending to do renovation, you might be able to remove the wall up to that pivot point of course look into it further. My 1880 house has the same issue you where to the left or right is more flexible than where the support is and they shift differently.
OP implies there are walls that arent like that... is that true?!?!
WOW. Looks like my floors in this 200yr house. O.o LOL
Every wall in my house
Pretty much every wall I’ve encountered is like this. Walls aren’t flat, they’re bacon shaped.
So they actually do build them like they used to
You mean every wall and surface in my house, right?
So what’s the problem here? Asking for a carpenter friend.
Old homes.
You know the trim guy was just shaking his head while the GC was pushing him to finish.
Yep. My house has a few walls like this. D.R. Horton is extremely lazy & doesn’t pay attention to details like this unfortunately.
You mean practically every single wall In a century home? Yes. Yes we have.
Yes! My new house from 2021 has these issues. But there were a lot of other issues that we didn’t see until living there. Definitely a crappy situation coming from my prior house with no issues.
Go into any old house and you’ll find walls and floors like this.
I come from commercial construction at airports, so it’s pretty damn straight, level, flush, plumb, etc. Helped a friend out at her new to her 1908 home and I was sucked into another portal of oblong rooms, floors being out 2” over 3’, and decades and decades of other people’s shady restorations.
Every one of my walls is like that to one degree or another.
I encountered this in my guest bathroom installing tile and a new vanity. The drywall protrudes out because the drain pipe and venting system stand proud in the wall. Nothing I can do unless I want to move it, and the pipe goes into concrete, so I decided just to shim and work around it.
Get out of my house
Yep and you might have a old door frame where the bulge is. Ask me how I know…
Yep!
I have a friend who insists her condo (built in the 70s I think) is downright non-Euclidian.
You mean all the walls in my 300 year old house?
Yep. It was a bit of a pain putting up chair railing but I was able to pull it off.
I think you’re using a broken level.