Building A Stud Wall Step By Step

Here's a step by step guide of how I installed a stud wall for a customer yesterday. This is going to make a large walk-in wardrobe with long length shelves and rails

Setting out. Always tricky in a old house. In the end I went square off the wall with the window as it looked right.



The outside frame up. It's essential to get this level. Cut the uprights long enough to wedge the head and sole plate in place.
I screwed these in but I also used a grab adhesive to stick them to the walls, floor and ceiling



Next add the studs that will form the door opening.
Make the opening a couple of mm bigger than the frame you're going to fit

Add the other studs. so that no spacing is wider than 400mm (16").
Also cut out the sole plate where the door is.



Add noggins at to carry the plasterboard joint (1.2m).
Also add the head to the door and an upright to carry the plasterboard

Here I've added extra noggins as I know I've got to fit a large shelve and hanging rail later

Extra noggins give you a solid fixing later in a job



Plasterboard one side of the stud wall



Plasterboard the other side, making sure no screws are left sticking out
(you can add insulating between for sound proofing if you want to)



Add your door lining- take your time with this and make sure it's plumb and not in twist - it will make hanging the door much easier later. This was a hardwood door linning so I countersunk all the screws to accept hardwood pellets to hide the screw heads.

That's as far as I can go for now.

Now I've just got to wait for Sean the plasterer to come and then I can finish off all the trim work (architrave, skirting), hang the door and then add all the shelves and rails that the customer wants.

Tall Skirting And Wide Architrave

Although we're going to be using standard skirting through the main house, in the master bedroom and dressing room we needed to match the existing tall skirting.

This consisted of a 9 inch high skirting (which in the past they would have made on site). We managed to find a simular moulding off the shelf and with a couple of cuts on the table saw I managed to make it match the top of the old skirting excatly. I then used my biscut jointer to join this to some 7"x1" PSE which I had already added a chamfere to.

Tall skirting with stop blocks

Fitting skirting is always interesting in an old house as it can be difficult to find a fixing and the walls can be far from great. Luckily these walls were lath and plaster on timber battens, so I spent a little bit of time finding the uprights and it gave me a good fixing without too much bother.

I added stop blocks to four external corners as these are the bottom of an arched opening which I've got to add a curved architrave to next week (more on this another time!), having the blocks gives the architrave something to stop into rather than being knotched round the skirting - A much tider job!

Nice wide architrave

 

Wide architrave

 The architrave I fitted is made from two seperate peices planted one on top of the other. I love this wide architrave, I think it really sets a door frame off, much better than some of the tiny modern stuff we end up fitting!

Fitting Fancy Fascia And Barge Board

This week we fitted some rather fancy fascia and barge board on the orangery that we fitted the roof to a few months ago.

Fancy barge board - there might be a large finial added at a later date

 The board are in sapele and made up of layers of mouldings and flat boards to get the overall finished look. The barge board is made up of 5 different pieces layered on top of each other - not to mention all the packing timbers that had to be fixed behind to get the layers right.

Picture showing the splay on the roof as well as the fascia that has one less moulding than the barge board

This wasn't a job we could rush, lots of mitres where the roof splays on one side and boxes out over the old roof on the other. I decided to cut all the mitres by hand as it was easier than running up and down the ladder to the mitre saw all day - I should have brought my Nobex saw with me but all my cuts were really tidy with just a swipe from the block plane. 

Boarding round the box gutter where it meets the old roof

I used sapele pellets to plug all the screws holes and now it's being prepped for painting (hence the silver colour of the wood!), which seems like such a shame when fitting hardwood.

Not quite so fancy!

 Today I also added fascia and barge board to the boiler house - not quite as complicated this time! Just simple ply soffits with everything else softwood (painted before it goes on). I saved a bit of time as I brought a table saw with me to rip all the ply down. I was really pleased to have it all on as fast as we did and every joint looking good.

Real Men Drive Transits

I had a bit of an accident with my little Transit Connect the other day, involving another vehicle. No one was hurt and the van is being repaired but the speed in which insurance companies work prompted me to buy another van to save being without one for too long.

I've needed a bigger van for quite some time now. The Connect I've got/had is all racked out (by myself) so it holds all my tools neatly but it's difficult to carry materials to jobs as well, there's only so much you can carry on a roof rack and if its raining it makes it worse.

I decided I might as well bite the bullet and go for a big 'un and get a full size transit! All white and at the moment with no sign writing so I turn heads as I'm sure people think I'm after their scrap metal!

 

New transit filling the drive

I plan to get it sign written with my company name and to rack out the back to hold all my tools and keep them organised - any ideas on the racking would be appreciated I carry quite a bit of stuff!

I'm loving the van already, it's nippy and sitting up high means you see a lot more (it's also got roof bars ready fitted saving me a job).