Exercise in Frustration

Six hours of work. Five feet of wall. Incomplete. The Hell Wall continues to fight back as I attempt to frame around the drain stack. The day started out with yet another trip to Home Depot - this time for a 2x8 and 1x10 to repair a dent/crack in the lower landing floor, some new saw blades - one for the chop saw, and one for the jigsaw - and more 3" screws. Unfortunately 1x10's don't come in 9 and 5/8, so I wound up getting a 1x3 and 2 1x4 to make up the difference as their combined width was greater than that of a 1x10. Why is it that dimensional lumber never has the advertised dimensions anyway? Wikipedia has this to say

 More stuff

Changing out the chop saw blade was actually quite easy, and in a couple of short minutes, I had a brand new saw blade ready for some serious cross-cutting.

Voila!

Ready for framing, I set out to cut the requisite boards. My approach today was to measure, compile a cut list, and and get all of the boards cut at once. The idea was to save time going up and down the stairs cutting boards one at a time. Once cut to length, I assembled the pieces downstairs, and attempted to set them in place. This actually worked surprising well, although problems soon arose (quel surprise!). First, the top plate did not clear the joint of the drain pipe, so I actually got up on the stool with a chisel, and started carving away until the board had the proper clearance. I needed to take out nearly a quarter inch, so it took quite a while to whittle away the notch. I fit the plate in though, and once that was accomplished, I set out to frame up wall #2. I actually decided to try dry fitting the pieces before assembly to make sure that everything fit as planned. They did not. I discovered that the 2 walls would not be properly aligned if installed as they were. There may have been cursing.

I believe there is a relatively simple solution to this problem, but it will mean removing the current cap stud, and cutting a new one. *sigh* Such is life. It will wait until tomorrow, however, as it is getting late, and I have a strict policy of not cutting wood after dark.

Today's progress