I have a stud wall!
Saturday dad and I built a wall! I'm more excited about it today than I was then -- for all I'd been looking forward to it, when push came to shove I ran up against my chronic perfectionism and a recalcitrant body that spent all weekend trying to decide whether to be ill or not. Building things when you're getting vertigo every time you stand up or lean over isn't fun, and I had enough sourceless muscle fatigue I had trouble lifting the nail gun. :( I felt like a total wimp, but at least dad knows it's not normal for me.
I'll go into more detail on framing the wall if anyone's interested -- I think it's interesting, but I'm not sure if anyone wants to read it. ;) The big exciting moment was standing it up. We lifted the framed wall at a diagonal, pivoted it 90 degrees into rough position, pushed it up until it wedged against the new top plate... and then lifted the entire roof assembly over an inch with a floor jack, so we could shove the wall into place and drop the roof back down on top of it.
Pumping a jack handle while your entire house creaks and groans and moans above your head is both awesome and terrifying. Bonus: the roofline had a visible sway over the garage area from the outside. It doesn't much anymore. :P
The new wall cuts the garage space in two, making a 12'x15'9" studio, and adding the rest of the space to the utility room (space which I'll expand the kitchen into... later). The only decision to make about the wall was the placement of the door, so that's what I freaked out about. I'd planned to have it line up with the exterior laundry room door (for ease of moving things in and out), which put it roughly mid-wall. Once I drew the rough opening on the subfloor and stood in it, though, I realized that with the studio being 15'9" instead of 20', that mid-wall door divided it into two awkwardly small spaces, so I shifted the opening to the north, creating one decently sized space and one tiny awkward space. (I didn't want it all the way into the corner, because I want room for a counter/workbench on the utility room side). I wasn't sure I was making the right decision at the time, but now I'm really happy I did it that way. Not only have I had a day to get used to it, but on Sunday mom and i moved ALL THE TOOLS from the laundry room into the studio, and organized them on a makeshift workbench right where a desk could go in the space by the door, so I have a really good feel for what it'll be like. :D
Speaking of rearranging: My mother is totally awesome for helping me clean, organize, and move the entire contents of the laundry room yesterday. Totally awesome. She'd volunteered to help demolish the wall; I told her thanks, but I wouldn't be ready until next weekend because there was too much crap around it. She said "No problem, we'll work on that! See you in an hour."
It's so much nicer to do that kind of thing with someone else. I honestly wouldn't have had the motivation to do half of it -- especially since it's not the first time. Remodeling a house you're living in is really just a very extended process of moving your tools from one spot to another. And not just tools -- all the stuff that had been in the garage that I'd oh-so-carefully stowed in the laundry room had to come out, too!
Mom and I also went out and looked at tile (for the studio) and vinyl (for the laundry room), just for fun. Mostly we just complained about the Ubiquity of Beige. There's a big flooring warehouse out in Lacey which we thought'd be promising. Nope. Two walls were covered in carpet rolls, and every single one was beige. The tile was a bit better -- only about 97% beige.
Guess what color I don't want on my studio floor? :P
Oh, and just so's it's evident I'm not totally mooching on my parents, there was an exchange of labor. My mom's working on a picture book for my cousin's kids, but she'd gotten stuck, so she brought over all her drawings and had me sketch in the bits she couldn't figure out. :)
I'll go into more detail on framing the wall if anyone's interested -- I think it's interesting, but I'm not sure if anyone wants to read it. ;) The big exciting moment was standing it up. We lifted the framed wall at a diagonal, pivoted it 90 degrees into rough position, pushed it up until it wedged against the new top plate... and then lifted the entire roof assembly over an inch with a floor jack, so we could shove the wall into place and drop the roof back down on top of it.
Pumping a jack handle while your entire house creaks and groans and moans above your head is both awesome and terrifying. Bonus: the roofline had a visible sway over the garage area from the outside. It doesn't much anymore. :P
The new wall cuts the garage space in two, making a 12'x15'9" studio, and adding the rest of the space to the utility room (space which I'll expand the kitchen into... later). The only decision to make about the wall was the placement of the door, so that's what I freaked out about. I'd planned to have it line up with the exterior laundry room door (for ease of moving things in and out), which put it roughly mid-wall. Once I drew the rough opening on the subfloor and stood in it, though, I realized that with the studio being 15'9" instead of 20', that mid-wall door divided it into two awkwardly small spaces, so I shifted the opening to the north, creating one decently sized space and one tiny awkward space. (I didn't want it all the way into the corner, because I want room for a counter/workbench on the utility room side). I wasn't sure I was making the right decision at the time, but now I'm really happy I did it that way. Not only have I had a day to get used to it, but on Sunday mom and i moved ALL THE TOOLS from the laundry room into the studio, and organized them on a makeshift workbench right where a desk could go in the space by the door, so I have a really good feel for what it'll be like. :D
Speaking of rearranging: My mother is totally awesome for helping me clean, organize, and move the entire contents of the laundry room yesterday. Totally awesome. She'd volunteered to help demolish the wall; I told her thanks, but I wouldn't be ready until next weekend because there was too much crap around it. She said "No problem, we'll work on that! See you in an hour."
It's so much nicer to do that kind of thing with someone else. I honestly wouldn't have had the motivation to do half of it -- especially since it's not the first time. Remodeling a house you're living in is really just a very extended process of moving your tools from one spot to another. And not just tools -- all the stuff that had been in the garage that I'd oh-so-carefully stowed in the laundry room had to come out, too!
Mom and I also went out and looked at tile (for the studio) and vinyl (for the laundry room), just for fun. Mostly we just complained about the Ubiquity of Beige. There's a big flooring warehouse out in Lacey which we thought'd be promising. Nope. Two walls were covered in carpet rolls, and every single one was beige. The tile was a bit better -- only about 97% beige.
Guess what color I don't want on my studio floor? :P
Oh, and just so's it's evident I'm not totally mooching on my parents, there was an exchange of labor. My mom's working on a picture book for my cousin's kids, but she'd gotten stuck, so she brought over all her drawings and had me sketch in the bits she couldn't figure out. :)