I am in the middle of planning a MAJOR house-wide renovation, and one of the things I am considering is to lower the ceilings in most of the rooms.
A bit of background first: this is an old 1800's house, and the 1st floor has 10 foot ceilings, while the 2nd floor has about 7 foot ceilings. The 2nd floor walls are angled a little over halfway up, as it is right next to the roof, and there is about 3 feet of ceiling connecting to both sides of the 2nd floor's walls. I believe the second floor may not have existed in the initial build, and was actually added at a later date. The whole house is pretty much built with hardwood harvested from the local area, as they did back then, so existing boards and joists are ACTUALLY 2"x4" when it's a 2x4.
I would like to lower the ceilings downstairs by about 2 feet, so that I can eventually REMOVE the upstairs floors, lowering them to the new ceiling joists below. Doing this, I hope to drop the 2nd floor ceiling by about 2 feet also, to eliminate (or at least minimize) the slanted walls. I have an IDEA of how to do this already, based on what I know about building a house, and proper joist support, but I wanted to hear what others may have to say about it, especially if any of you have done this (and had good results) before. I'm sure there may be multiple ways to make it work, but I can't seem to find anything online or in the Indiana Building Code or even YouTube videos. Probably not a very common thing
Anyways, if any of you have methods you have used, or recommendations, I am all ears. Thanks in advance
A bit of background first: this is an old 1800's house, and the 1st floor has 10 foot ceilings, while the 2nd floor has about 7 foot ceilings. The 2nd floor walls are angled a little over halfway up, as it is right next to the roof, and there is about 3 feet of ceiling connecting to both sides of the 2nd floor's walls. I believe the second floor may not have existed in the initial build, and was actually added at a later date. The whole house is pretty much built with hardwood harvested from the local area, as they did back then, so existing boards and joists are ACTUALLY 2"x4" when it's a 2x4.
I would like to lower the ceilings downstairs by about 2 feet, so that I can eventually REMOVE the upstairs floors, lowering them to the new ceiling joists below. Doing this, I hope to drop the 2nd floor ceiling by about 2 feet also, to eliminate (or at least minimize) the slanted walls. I have an IDEA of how to do this already, based on what I know about building a house, and proper joist support, but I wanted to hear what others may have to say about it, especially if any of you have done this (and had good results) before. I'm sure there may be multiple ways to make it work, but I can't seem to find anything online or in the Indiana Building Code or even YouTube videos. Probably not a very common thing
Anyways, if any of you have methods you have used, or recommendations, I am all ears. Thanks in advance
