An uplifting day in Dundas

The A Team
Jen, Stan and Billy under the newly-leveled floor.

For over 100 years, the forces of gravity have been pushing down on Jennifer's second story floor. The rough-cut 16-foot timbers have relaxed and drooped. Today they got their comeuppance.
Fifteen brand new timbers (11 percent off this week at Menard's) are being "sistered" to the vintage floor joists, thereby raising the center of the floor a couple of inches and creating a sensation of solidarity that a dance hall operator could envy.
Should be good for another 100 years.

"Einstein" gets a closer look. Notice the
doubled up timbers, old and new. Also, notice the
lack of a top plate supporting them. That will be
remedied as well.

Billy arrived this morning with two red bottle jacks and a plan for reversing gravity. There's no exact science to doing this in an old house, but "Einstein" screwed the sisters tightly together on one end, then Stan and Jen jacked up the loose end, slowly, slowly, as Billy worked towards them, screwing the sisters together, taking full advantage of the powerful leveraging that was forcing the sway out of the old timber. . . all the while making an awful racket with his impact tool. We spent much of the day with our arms uplifted and ear protection strapped on.
There's still plenty of character left in Jen's Old House, don't worry. But a thorough re-framing job is what's called for to make her further improvements worthwhile.
It's going good. Thanks for your interest. Much more to do.
We knocked off at 3 p.m. today, Billy had another client to see, Jen has a pizza party at the Red Barn, and Stan has a bottle. . . of Advil.

The new wood is screwed tight to the old wood. The old wood is wider and thicker than a modern 2x8, making an
interesting project. The little white lines are from the lath and plaster ceiling that was removed earlier.
Jen's temporary living quarters are behind a wall on the right, in the "new" addition.
This is the original part of the house, using old building methods that are quirky and definitely not up to today's code.