Pulling things together

Back when we refinished the attic into the media room, I think I neglected to mention an interesting construction detail that was under the floorboards up there... luckily, with the opening up of the ceiling in the master bedroom I was able to take better photos to document with!

There are several heavy duty cables that are added support for the sides of the house...

Our guess is that since they put the slate roof right on top of the shake roof (about a hundred years ago), the weight may have been causing bowing sometime after that.  So they added several of these contraptions to help hold things together.  The architects said that everything is sound- so nothing to be concerned about. The county historian had toured the house last summer and said that she's seen this method used on old houses before.