The Other Side of Hell

Today saw the completion of the hell wall. Finally. I started out by replacing a problematic cap stud from side one of the drain stack framing, and proceeded to put up the studs for side two. When the two walls were up, lo and behold, they were square and lined up perfectly.

Halle-freakin-lujah

The next step was installing blocks to solidify the wall. Only the top plate of the outer wall is attached to the floor joists, as the interior wall is set to accommodate the building of bulkheads around the plumbing for the bathroom directly above, so the wall is still a bit shaky. Interestingly, that particular bit of ceiling will be installed 3/4" lower than the bottom of the floor joists in order to accommodate plumbing supply lines, so I had to cut 3/4" slices from 2x4 off-cuts to act as spacers between the top plate and the joists.

Installing the blocks was a piece of cake, and I soon had a very solid wall that wouldn't budge of I ran head-on into it, which is likely to happen at some point given my general level of agility.

Blocked

It feels pretty good to have emerged from hell with a completed set of walls that are solid and square. They're not actually totally complete though, but the worst of it is definitely over.

Now that the Hell Wall has been put behind us, it was time to move on to other things. Next on the list was to fix the dent/crack in the landing floor.

Dent/crack

The floor is made up of 3/4" tongue-and-groove boards, so it would seem as though simply replacing the broken board would be pretty easy. So it would seem. The stair stringers were actually installed on top of this floor, so I can't actually remove the board without disassembling the stairs. Enter the new 2x8. My plan is to cut the damaged board flush with an existing 2x8, install a sister 2x8, and attach the replacement boards to the sister. This solution will allow the stairs to remain undisturbed while providing adequate support for the replacement boards. The first step was cutting out the damaged board.

Damage remediated

The reciprocating saw came back out today, and was used to cut the damaged board flush with the existing 2x8. Not exactly a clean cut, but good enough for what was required. Once the damaged board was removed, it was time to install the sister joist.

Sistered

Lesley gave me a hand putting in the new joist, which is screwed into the original. Notice the difference in the dimensions of the old 2x8 versus the new 2x8. The new one is a full 1/2" smaller.

Next, it was a simple matter to install the new floor boards.

Repaired

Now that the floor has been fixed, we can start framing the walls that will sit on top of this landing.

Our friends Kerri & Grant have invited us to join them by their pool this afternoon, so this is the end of today's work. It's too nice out today to be in a dark basement anyway!