The Barn, Framing-2nd Floor

As for wall framing on the second floor, It seemed like it was going to be pretty simple.  Just frame up two gabel ends and a bathroom. I can honestly tell you that there was nothing easy about framing a gabel end for a gambrel roof. It is of course likely that I over complicated it, but I don't think it was by much.

By looking at them they look a little thin on support, that is because they will not be supporting anything besides a window and sheathing. The roof will be self-supporting. I had to get some help raising this one. It wasn't heavy, but it was an acrobatic feat just to nail down the bottom plate with that stair opening.

The front gable was a lot easier, but I still had some help as I did not want to be chasing the wall over the edge. The bathroom wall was simple, nothing special. And the half wall was much easier. 

Most would ask why we did a 36" wall, which technically reduced the square footage of our bathroom. The reason is that we will need a flat wall to put the tub, toilet, and sink against.

As for the wall framing, that's pretty much it. The rest of the second floor will be roof framing.

The Barn, Framing-1st Floor

Now, before you get to all the pictures, keep in mind that I tend to overbuild things a little.

There is not much to framing a wall, just follow the "instructions" laid out by your architect. If framing a wall is a little above your scope, keeping things square is key. In order to keep your walls square, make all of your markings on both the top and bottom sill with them together. This is never more important than when you are roughing in the windows, doors, and triple studs.  But you also need to cut your jack studs and cripples at the same length. For the rest of the studs, I used the pre-cut 92 5/8" s-p-f studs. They cost a little more, but save you a lot of time. All of your studs will be 16" on center, but remember you sheathing will have seams at 4' increments, so an adjustment will need to be made on the first stud to end up on 4' and 8'.

The #1 reason I did not pre-build the walls off-site was because it it important to have a flat surface to help keep the wall straight. That, and they tend to get really heavy.

Speaking of heavy, the wall above consists of over 30 studs and 4 2x12s at 39". If you do this all on your own, first, get a hard hat (you may never use it, but it's always nice to have it on in case you need it), second, take it slow and use plent of supports. I had to raise the wall a little at a time and go back and forth from one end to the other, walking it up slowly. I also screwed scrap 2x12 blocks to the beam to keep the wall from slipping off of the subfloor.

This wall was much lighter and easier to raise.

The third wall, which will end up being the kitchen, was probably the hardest. Space was very limited, and once I got it up it almost went over. And if it had done that, there would have been no way to recover it on my own.

The final wall was about like the second, but I had to leave out the double sill on the ends until after it was up otherwise I would have had to push the side walls out a little because of the overlap.