Since the mess of ripping down plaster has been covered, I'm happy to move along to more interesting hlogging pastures! The process of framing took a while, with several weekends devoted to wall framing, and the bulk of the ceiling framing accomplished in a single marathon session. I won't cover all of this, but I'll try to get the greatest hits covered on here.
Furring Strips: The Underwire of Framing
Since thermal insulation was one of the major reasons for the renovation, we came up with a plan to maximize the thermal efficiency of the room. The plan was to leave the majority of the plaster up (coincidentally minimizing the additional mess I'd make ripping it down), and allow air to
circulate between the roof rafters and the plaster. Eventually, this may include the addition of a powered attic fan to circulate stagnant hot air and reduce the heat trapped in the attic.On the other side of the existing plaster, we affixed styrofoam panels that were covered with a reflective foil to reflect radiant heat. These would also provide a modest insulating effect, but that's just a bonus. Speaking of bonuses, these panels were super-effective at mocking up walls! These panels were put up in two different ways - the majority were held to the plaster by a couple drywall screws, and framed over, using furring strips as spacers. A few others, particularly those on framing sections made with full 8' boards, the framing was built on the ground, and the insulating boards fixed to the framing before it was hung up. On the vertical surface running along
the stairs, furring strips were put up 16" on center with the foamboard between, since the wall couldn't be built out any farther without being in the way of going upstairs. Since the foamboard went up immediately before each section of framing, there aren't really any photos of just the boards hung up. So in place of a nice illustrative photo, I've included this one of a barely-framed wall with the foil/foamboard underneath.The Bones - Framing Right Along
With the foam board underneath and radiant heat issues managed, framing proceeded in
sections. We started at the front of the room with Mike's framing, then moved back section by section. Everything was framed 16" on center to since fiberglass batting insulation was the final layer of the "keep it comfortable" cake. In all, I'd estimate it took about 20 rolls of the pink insulation shown in the photo. This combined with the foam boards should give an effective insulation level of about R-16. It's not as much as I'd like, but it was a compromise between depth of framing I was willing to accept and the need for a better resilience to outside temperatures.As we moved around the room, the outer corners presented the greatest challenge. These were handled through some clever use of bolts, hope, and clever constr
uction conceived by Mike. The two spots that were intended to be skylights had already been marked off on the wall and cut out, so framing proceeded around them, allowing us to completely circle the room without too much trouble. The photo to the right also nicely illustrates the technique we used to fix the foamboard to the framing, then put the whole piece up all at once.Once we got around to the corner where the bathroom would be built, we switched over to framing the interior walls with 2x6" boards, since these would have different demands put on them than simple insulation: plumbing!
The added wrinkle of having to plan for plumbing really stretched my mind more than I expected it to. Not only did we have to get the boards dimensionally correct, they had to be
pre-cut to allow the large diameter waste pipe to run through them. Since this was roughly a 3" hole, it was cut with a jigsaw on each board, and the walls were stick-built, rather than framed all in large sections. This wasn't a big sacrifice, but you can see from the shim-work at the top of the boards that it was an inexact science to get this wall built. It didn't turn out too badly, and a little bit of shim-work on the face of the boards got the wall structure all in plane and all was well.The rest of the bathroom walls went up without much drama. By this time, I had gotten the solid-surface shower pan ordered and shipped in, so we used that to help size the bathroom enclosure and got through the work nicely! The only thing I'd change about the way we did this section would be to only use 2x4" boards to frame the doorway - neither Mike nor I realized that the 2x6" would complicate our lives since the pre-hung door was too sh
allow for the wall we had built. It's nothing that a little trim won't hide, but I think we both had a forehead smacking moment when we realized it.Like a Moth to a Frame
Once the bathroom framing was finished-ish, the only major framing work to be done was to hang the ceiling framing. This was not particularly well documented work, since we were ready to end the framing-phase, and not too many photos were taken. It's sort of a shame, since it involved a water level (exotic!), and a lot of standing around scratching our heads why our water level didn't agree with our eyes (...more likely the other way around). However, the ceiling boards went up rather successfully, and that's all you'll get out of me on those.
Coming up next post... the basics of plumbing with copper and PVC, and the first skylight is installed! Very exciting stuff, and is that a light at the end of the tunnel?!
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(It turned out it was not a light at the end of the tunnel. It was just afternoon sunlight coming in for the first time through the skylight. There is much work to go!)
