Tried shiplap in my 1920s bungalow and it fought back like crazy

I finally got around to putting shiplap in my living room last fall. The walls in my Chicago bungalow are SO out of square, nothing lined up right. I spent a full Saturday just trying to get the first row level and wrestling with gaps that kept appearing. Ended up having to scribe every single board to the old plaster, which added like 8 hours to the job. Lesson learned: never assume old houses have straight anything, even if it looks flat from across the room. Has anyone else dealt with wavy walls when doing wall paneling?

2 comments

2 Comments

cole_hall12d ago

Used to think level walls were a given. Boy was I wrong.

cole_hall11d ago

Wait, you mean you actually thought walls were supposed to be straight? That's adorable. I remember my first house, I put a shelf up and it looked like a drunk snake slithering across the wall. My grandpa came over, looked at it, and just said "well, at least it's not level, so it's character." That's when I learned that old houses don't have corners, they have suggestions of corners. Now I just tell people my pictures are "floating" on purpose. It's an art installation, really.