What goes up...needs to stay up

So as it turns out tearing down the drop ceiling not only exposed the water issue around the fireplace but also revealed that nine of the ten ceiling joists in the living room were not sitting on the upper plate of the load bearing wall.  Instead they had simply married them to the corresponding joists coming from the other side of the house with large nails and called it good.  I can't fathom why they would have done this though I suspect it may have had something to do with saving money and the fact that the second floor was probably used as an unfinished attic for storage only.

Amazingly the ceiling didn't show signs of sagging and neither did the roof line but it needed a fix.  Using 2x6's and bolts I set about marrying the joists.  Now I'm sure that some engineering types would say that to achieve true structural stability you have to extend the new boards "x" distance and so on but I had to just go with my gut on this.  Plus I was working around the electrician and didn't want to delay his work and the sheet rock was scheduled to go up in less than a week and I had other issues to tackle. 

With the new boards married I had to drill additional holes for the electrical lines to run through but overall the job went smoothly.  Using the clamps allowed me to position things properly and get a snug fit when the bolts were tightened.  Plus, since I was working alone, I wasn't fumbling with the boards while trying to tighten the nuts.
























Once this was done I could turn my energy to the dry rot around the fireplace.  I did a lot of thinking about how to best tackle it.  Knowing I would need to prop joists and jack some of them back into position to level things I waited the week until after Elizabeth and I had moved her over from Seattle.

So the picture at the right gives you an idea of what we started with.  First we cut some 2x4's the right length and positioned them under the floor joists. Next, using a sawzall we cut away the 2x6 that lay against the chimney.  You can see a little part of it at the left side of the picture.  We also removed the 2x4's running vertically along the chimney because the upper wood on one of them, the diagonal  lying one, was full of rot.

With the rotted wood removed we cut a new 2x6 piece for along the fireplace.  It was a challenge to slide back in around the existing joists and a lip created by the fireplace brick and required the right amount of brute force, pounding and deft positioning to get back in. Once positioned, we used the scissor jack from my car to jack the joists back into position, level them, and affix them to the 2x6 using metal brackets.  The next few pictures show it pretty well. I also put Kilz paint on a few board ends just for good measure in case there was any impending "rot creep" that wanted to occur.

 

Once the joists were affixed I added back one of the 2x4's along the right hand side building a "skeleton" to anchor it.  This would allow us to have anchor points for the sheet rock and the shiplap we plan to add to to the front.  In the end I think it came out well and we had it all put together in time foe the sheet-rockers to get in and start doing their thing.