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Ran into a bowed wall on a 1920s house in Dayton, spent 22 hours over 3 days just fixing one corner
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park.tara3d ago
That "22 hours over 3 days" line hit home because I did the same thing on a 1915 bungalow a few years back. What finally worked for me was to stop fighting the bow and work with it. I opened up the plaster on the inside wall first so I could actually see the framing, and it turned out two studs had rotted at the sill and the whole corner was pulling out of plumb. I sistered new studs next to the old ones, then used a come-along anchored to a floor joist on the far side of the room to slowly pull things back over about a week, just a little bit each day so nothing cracked. The trick is going slow and checking with a long level every time, because if you crank it all at once the old lath just snaps. After the frame was straight I shimmed the low spots and patched with drywall instead of trying to match the old plaster. It is slow, boring work but it holds.
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