Can we talk about that weird old house in Springfield with the slanted floors?

I was working on a job there last week, a full carpet replacement in a 1920s bungalow. The homeowner warned me the floors weren't level, but man, it was something else. The living room sloped almost an inch and a half over 10 feet. I was about to start shimming like crazy when the old guy next door, who used to do this work, came over with a coffee. He said, 'Kid, you're fighting the house. Lay your pad and carpet with the slope, don't try to beat it.' He showed me how to start my first row parallel to the main slope line, not the wall, and stretch with the dip. It felt wrong, but the finished job lays flat and looks perfect, no weird ripples. Has anyone else had a job where going with the flow of a bad floor worked better than trying to fix it?

3 comments

3 Comments

graygonzalez1mo ago

Wow, that's how you deal with a lot of life's problems, honestly.

king.andrew22d ago

But isn't that just giving up and settling, @graygonzalez?

drewsullivan1mo ago

Ever tried to hang wallpaper in a crooked room? I spent hours trying to get my first strip perfectly vertical, but the whole wall was off. My dad told me to just follow the wall's own line, and it looked way better in the end.