By The Editors of Fine Homebuilding
Learn the Trade Secrets
Used by Pros to Get First Rate Framing Results
New homes, additions and major remodeling require
solid professional framing when framing floors, framing walls and
framing ceilings. This selection of articles from Fine
Homebuilding magazine explains the tools, techniques, code
requirements, and trade secrets expert builders need and use to
frame floors, walls and ceilings—efficiently and the right way.
Achieve top-notch results without inspection hold-ups or client
call-backs. From truing up a mudsill and cutting multiple parts in a
single pass of the saw (a tremendous time-saver) to selecting
headers, erecting trusses, and completing cathedral and coffered
ceilings, Framing Floors, Walls, and Ceilings delivers
the best field-tested information in the business.
Written by the pros who actually do house framing, these articles will
help you to:
- Square and level mudsills
- Create simple jigs for faster framing
- Framing coffered ceilings
- Lay out for perfect walls
- Straighten framed walls
- Plumb, align, and brace framed walls
- Frame simple curves
- Plan and frame cathedral ceilings
About the For Pros by Pros series
To get the best results when building or remodeling, you need advice
from the best professionals in the business. For Pros By Pros books
bring together the expert designers, builders, and remodeling pros
who have written for Fine Homebuilding magazine.
Introduction:
I recently helped a
friend remodel the bathroom in his 150-year old house. The room had
been gutted, and the exposed framing was a graphic reminder that we
really don’t build houses like we used to. The exterior wall was
framed with timbers bigger than my leg, and the wall separating the
bath from the bedroom was framed with 8-in. wide chestnut planks on
occasional centers. These 1-in. thick studs had many edges and were
turned flat to provide a broad nailing base for the accordion lath
that held the plaster. It was beautiful, at least to a couple of old
carpenters, and we wondered for a moment how we might leave it all
exposed.
The transition from building with planks and timbers to the way we
build houses today started 200 years ago with the invention of a
nail-making machine, but didn’t really get going until the
widespread mechanization of sawmills over the next few decades. At
that point, you had studs and nails, which are what we still use
today. But the methods and materials have evolved continuously over
the years. Balloon framing, where the studs ran uninterrupted from
foundation to roof, gave way to the platform framing we use today.
Studs got smaller. Plywood replaced board sheathing. Nail guns
overtook hammers. And so on.
Efforts to make better use of our dwindling forests, to build houses
faster and to make them safer in the wake of hurricanes, earthquakes
and fires have all led to changes in the way we stitch our homes
together. If you’re building today, whether it’s a new house or a
partition wall your basement, you need to keep up with new materials
and changing codes. The articles in this book will help you do that
(among other things). Collected from past issues of Fine
Homebuilding magazine, these articles were written by
experienced builders. If they worked beside you on a job site, or
lived next door, you’d ask their advice about the header over your
new picture window. But good builders aren’t that easy to find,
which is why we got these folks to write down what they’ve learned.
—Kevin Ireton, Editor, Fine Homebuilding
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