Things You Wish You'd Done

We've been doing a bit of trim and finish work over the past few months and it brings home some things that I wish I had been much more focused on. Primarily, framing.

It's clear to me now that in addition to framing for your drywaller, you also need to frame with your trim and your floor and your cabinets in mind.

What's that mean?

First, use straight, solid lumber anywhere that it's going to be creating a key nailing surface for trim.

Early on, when we were furring the walls out, we used a few inferior 2x4's that torqued out from the wall a bit in a few places. You don't notice this so much when you're working. Alas, after you spray with foam (immobilizing the 2x4), and then drywall over it, you sure do notice that the gypsum board protrudes 1/2" past the outside edge of the door jamb (you "fix" this by cutting back the gypsum board as much as you can and still hide it with trim.). You also do notice this in the corners where you have a funny gap where the tiles are square but the wall is not and the trim doesn't cover it. Which brings me to the second reminder...

Make sure your walls are square and plumb. Yes, you may have to get out the cat's paw and re-nail a 2x4, but it's worth it. This is ESPECIALLY true in bathrooms and kitchens or anyplace where you are tiling. Believe me. Here's a tip: An uncut corner piece of OSB can give you a pretty good read on square, if you don't have a framing square handy...and even if you do.

And while we're talking about "square and plumb", anywhere that you may be hanging cabinets or installing counters, you really also want your walls to be straight. You do not want some 2x4's bowing out into the room while others bow out of the room. That makes it hard to make a counter look right and to hang cabinets. A nice straight piece of OSB can help with the straight. I'd not worry too much about any irregularities down low in a kitchen space where it will be hidden by cabinets, nor up high. At counter and eye height, however, pay extra attention. Also make sure that you don't have any warping of the vertical framing members. You'll be looking for those when screwing cleats or cabinets to the wall.

And while we're talking about screwing cleats to the wall, let's talk about nailing surfaces. What about nailing surfaces? We like 'em, that's what. Lots of them. Especially in corners. Floors can bow, but you can bend trim a bit to accommodate this. Of course, if you can't find anything to nail the trim to, you're not going to bend it. Also, when you're trying to get good looking joints, you need the trim to be solidly nailed. You can't just nail into drywall and expect the trim to stay put. So, before you put away the pneumatic nailer, grab lots of scrap lumber and make sure every corner has lots of additional spacers and/or nailing blocks so that there's a nice big nailing surface at floor trim level. If the floor is funky or badly uneven, add a nailer on the sole plate too. Sometimes it's hard to get a good nailing angle.

And while we're adding blocks, make sure you also think about where cabinets may be hung or where you may be hanging shelves or perhaps even a grab bar (around a tub?). Put some additional blocking and nailing blocks at strategic locations. That will both make it much easier to secure loads to the wall later, but also stiffen the wall.

I'm not saying we had a whole lot of screw-ups, but when you're installing trim, or counters or cabinets, you're going to experience all of them. There are always work-arounds, but some are harder than others and regardless, framing screw ups can kill momentum, and make a relatively easy job take much longer.



More tips on framing HERE.

Shout Out to Bob--Top Tapcon Taskmaster

Bob Carlisle deserves another "atta". We ran out of the masonry fasteners that we use to fur our exterior walls and otherwise attach stuff to brick. It was Tuesday evening and we're under the gun to get the place furred out for the electrician.

We then forgot to order new fasteners until late Wednesday. H made her order with Confast.com again. They cost about 33% less than the big box hardware stores charge--including shipping. THURSDAY afternoon they were waiting for us. That was less than 24 hours turn around, AND it saved us good money. Oh and they throw in the bits too.

If you need Tapcons, go to Confast.com.

Here's a video of Bob showing you how to use Tapcons. "Atta" boy, Bob!

Why you use 2' increments for furring.

One word: DRYWALL.

When furring in the windows, we almost made the huge mistake of mis-attaching the furring strips.

For the sake of example, let's say we started in the right hand corner of a room and were laying furring along the wall to the left. Since we'd never done this before, we started with the assumption that when you started from the corner with the first furring strip, you'd measure from the exposed edge (the left side of the 2x4 ) of the corner 2x4, measure over 24" to the left, then lay the second furring strip to the right side of that 24" mark. So far so good.

The question was what happens when you come to a window, or a door frame. What then? I thought, well, you just frame in the window on all four sides, then continue measuring 24" to the left of the left side of the window and start measuring 24" from there. WRONG.

Apparently, you need to keep the 24" pacing around the wall and room, regardless of what gets in the way, because of the drywall 4'x8'measurements. So, if you need to add more strips around a window or a door frame that is not at a pre-measured interval, you just add in new furring where you need it.

In the animated image here, I've shown what we did, and why. CLICK THE IMAGE.

Note (in the animation) the orange arrows show where we added in the additional furring to the left, above and below the window to accommodate the window, but did NOT adjust the 2' spacing of the regular furring strips, and how the drywall would be laid in (from the ceiling downwards) after everything was in place.

Again, I note: In the 'preview' image, it doesn't show the animation, so you'll need to click on the image to see the full presentation.