Sheetrock and Interior Walls
Now that all the windows and doors have been installed we began this week by completing the installation of all
the door hardware. Here you see one of our front doors with the lock and latch installed. With the hardware
installed we will be able to lock the house just as soon as the garage doors are installed.
This was a busy week. On Tuesday the HVAC contractor showed up and began the installation of the heating
and air conditioning duct work in the crawl space.
A little later the same day our garage door contractor showed up and began the installation of our 18 x 8 foot
garage doors. These are insulated doors and will help keep the cold out once the rest of the garage is insulated.
Insulating the garage is a project for next year and is fairly low on the priority list at the moment.
On the garage side the door installation was pretty straight forward but on the shop side the door was routed
straight up 5 feet before it makes it's 90 degree turn. As you can see with the door fully open it only takes up
about 4 feet of space and will not interfere with the 4 post lift that will be located in this area.
With the garage door installation in the works we started installing fire code sheetrock on the walls between the
house and garage and shop. This is required by most building codes and ours is no exception.
The installation of sheetrock goes pretty quickly. All that's left to do here is to tape and mud the joints and nail
heads and the wall will be ready for paint.
Tuesday was a busy day as later in the afternoon our excavation contractor showed up to dig the trench for our
propane line. In this area it has to be at least 18" deep and once the line is installed it has to be pressurized and
inspected by the building inspector before the trench can be filled back in.
In many cases some of the best subcontractors are so busy they don't need to advertise. In this case our
plumber doesn't even have an ad in the local phone book. He is very busy and we were lucky he was able to
work us in. Underground propane lines are required to maintain 15 psi for 15 minutes in order to pass
inspection. When he was done, ours held 45 psi for 3 days. Needless to say the inspector had no problems with
that and it passed with flying colors.
Here you see a knee wall we constructed to deal with a minor problem with our blueprints. Every subcontractor
we've talked to said they have never seen a set of prints that didn't have a mistake somewhere. Ours was no
exception. There was a minor mistake which caused this wall to be mis-aligned over the rim joist. It overhangs
about 2 inches and because of this we felt it needed a little extra support. The easy fix was to build this knee
wall which supports doubled up 2x10's which are bolted every 2 feet to the rim joist. This whole structure adds
support to this wall and will ensure there will be no problems later on. We cleared this fix prior to getting
started and our building inspector was impressed with how this wall turned out.
Here's the same wall with the sheetrock almost complete.
No this isn't the creature from the black lagoon. This is the "Boss" in her sanding attire. Decked out in 5
layers of clothes (because the temperature was 8 degrees that morning) she is well on her way to starting a new
fashion craze.

The "Boss" spent most of the week sanding the second floor support beams in preparation for the installation
of the tongue and groove first floor ceiling. Ideally you would sand these beams before they are installed but in
our case we decided to wait in an attempt to get under roof quicker.
Once the house had been closed off from the garage we started framing the rest of the interior walls. This wall
divides the kitchen from the pantry and utility rooms. This wall is 2x4 construction 2 feet on center. If it was to
be sheeted with sheet rock it would have to be 16 inches on center. Because we're using tongue and groove on
at least one side 2 feet on center is OK.
We also framed the hallway that leads to the kitchen from the garage. There will be a door in this wall that will
lead to the pantry and utility rooms. We will complete these rooms next week. Right now we're concentrating
on framing all the walls for the kitchen since our cabinet contractor will be here on Tuesday to take
measurements for our kitchen cabinets and master bath vanities.
The final wall for the kitchen is just 34 inches but it will border the refrigerator and serve to divide the kitchen
from the dining room. All walls that intersect the exterior log walls are fastened like this with 8 inch lag bolts
every other log course.
The last thing we did this week was complete this little wall. Not much to it.
That's all for this week. Next week as I have mentioned our cabinet
contractor will be taking measurements in the kitchen and master bath.
We still have to build a small wall similar to the kitchen in the master
bath but we'll do that Monday morning. We will have our propane tank
delivered and installed next week and the HVAC contractor will
continue the installation of the duct work. Next week we will complete
the framing of all the first floor walls and hopefully get started on
building the stairs to the second floor.


Check back soon.