Man Cave part 4

By Georgia standards it has been fairly cold outside, I mean the forties are almost unbearable!!!  The past week or so has been pretty nice out so I was able to get out there and finish some nuisance work I really wasn’t looking forward to.

I finished up the blocking on the ceiling stringers.  At first I was spending too much time trying to get the angles perfect.  Before too long I realized a forty-five degree angle would be just fine seeing as it will all be buried in sheet rock and insulation.  It was nice to finish this because I had so much scrap wood to get rid of from the bracing; this killed 2 birds with one stone.

I installed 3 beam supports.  I doubled up on the ceiling stringers in these 3 spots.  Not really sure this was necessary, but seeing as I removed 3 supports going to the floor I figured it was a good idea.  I also have an example to follow at another development that is under construction and that is what they did, and I had wood to waste anyways.

My most pressing projects for the near future

I will be attaching the ledger board for the deck with carriage bolts so I made some supports to bolt into.  These will be glued and screwed into the top plate of the down stairs walls.  I will also throw a couple of lag bolts into the joists, maybe overkill, but I don’t go halfway.  I really need to get the ledger board on before the floor goes down.

There are a couple of boards that the builder used that the sheet rockers won’t hit with their screws.  I still have some scrap 2 x 4s left so I will sister them to the existing boards to serve as a sheet rock backer.

I have 2 floor joists that are level, but low.  I have some scrap peg board that should work perfect for this, I already test fit a piece, so all that is left is to rip it and nail it down.

Little more work in the man cave…Part 3

It was 72 degrees and sunny today, I had no excuse to not go out and work in the man cave.  My only goal for the day was to get the ceiling stringers installed.  A couple of weeks ago I pre-cut all of the stringers.  I was cutting all of my boards in the attic, but it was getting so dusty, and the floor was getting so slippery that it was becoming dangerous, yes even by my standards!!!  I got everything moved down into my garage where I could breathe better and better manage the mess.  Cutting was actually the hard part of this phase of the project.  I actually thought ahead for once and cut three boards to the size I thought would work and then I test fit them.

I am SO glad I thought ahead, because although they were the correct size, I had no wiggle room and getting them level was terrible.  I had not accounted for needing to work around mis-fired nails in the roof sheathing, so I cut the rest one inch shorter and that made life a lot easier!!!  I also made myself a jig to ensure that all of the stringers were installed at the same heighth.  It was far to difficult to hold the stringer, use a tape measure, use a level, and nail it in.  The jig at least removed one step from the equation for me.

There were a couple of areas where I couldn’t use the jig though.  For whatever reason the builders has shimmed down the main roof beam, I am guessing they measured once cut twice rather than the other way around, and the easiest solution was to add some wood in between the roof beam and the bracing.  I only came to this conclusion because, well I’ve done that before.

I had most of my stringers installed, so I threw the jig to the wayside and improvised.

I double checked the temporary “extra set of hands” for level, and as I like to say it was good enough for government work.  Nailed in the last few stringers and hung it up for the day.  The finished product to the naked eye, and well in the picture looks like a steaming pile of crap.  I took out my level and checked various spots and it is pretty darn level all things considered I am happy with it to this point.

Next to do on the list is cut the stringer braces.  I need 40 of them.

Install some bracing on top of the stringers for the main roof beam

Install the door and ledger board for the deck off the back.  I will also put in a window at this time for A/C.

Here is what the stringer bracing will look like when I am done

Things I learned today:

Three arms would be ideal, should have spent more time at Chernobyl as a kid.

A framing nailer can withstand a fall from the top of  a six-foot ladder, two bounces and then a 10 foot fall to the concrete below, however a level can not.

My man cave journey begins…Part 1

I will start from the very beginning of my journey.  When we built our house we included a 24 x 24 detached garage.  We asked the builder’s rep how much it was to finish the upstairs and she said it was 5K!!!  I found this kind of hard to believe seeing as the builder’s other development just down the road it only cost 2K.  Unfortunately we only had the 2K and not the 5K so we went without.  Six months after moving in the builder’s rep asked us why we didn’t finish the upstairs.  I explained to her that she said it was 5K and she says “Oh no it’s only 2K.”  That friends is where my journey begins.

Originally the plan was to only use the upstairs of the garage as storage, but quickly my needs changed, I mean a man needs a movie theater.  So I finished the upstairs as if it would only be used for storage and nothing else.  I put in an attic ladder which will be replaced with a 10 x 12 deck on the back of the garage.  I was thinking a patio door, but I want no windows, since it is strictly for watching movies, I want the dark.  I will also put a small window in the back to house an air conditioner.

The deck will be centered on the window, but obviously above it.  The stairs will go down to the right onto a deck that will be on the right side of my garage.  I need to actually make the door to the upstairs a priority so I can get the 4 x 8 sheets of flooring up there.

The most immediate projects though are raising the floor, re routing the wiring, and getting rid of the hap hazard bracing the framers used.  I went to get some lumber today, I don’t have a truck, but I do have a jeep so I have to get a little creative.  Now my hauling method seems to be completely normal to me, and by southern standards seems perfectly normal, but you should have seen the looks I was getting.  With my lumber in hand I can begin the long process of raising the floor.  There is a laminate beam that runs the width of my garage.  The floor joist run front to back and are attached to the beam.  The beam is 12″ tall though and the floor joists are only 2 x 8’s so I will sister 2 x 8’s to the existing ones and that will raise the floor to even with the top of the beam.

I had already put down OSB for flooring so I will begin by removing just enough so that I can do the joist work, I am pretty sure before this is all over I will put a foot through the ceiling into the garage!!!  Once I get the floor raised I can build my half walls in order to remove all of the bracing that the framers had installed.

I finished the day by wiring in a temporary outlet and some temporary lighting, so I don’t have extention cords running all over the place.  For those of you that know me I am an accident waiting to happen, so the more clutter free I can keep my work area the better.

Oh and before I sign off here is an example of all of the wire that I need to re route.  This will kind of have to be an ongoing process as I build walls and sister joists.