Suitable for Framing

Framing is the process of putting up the wall, floor and ceiling structure of a building.  In our case the framing is wood though metal frame is used a lot but mostly in bigger buildings.  When the carpenters frame a building, they assemble various pieces of wood (2x4, 2x6, 2x12, plywood, etc.) into a recognizable system of patterns to form the walls of rooms and support the next higher floor.  The weight of the next floor rests, in whole or part, on the walls they've framed on the current floor.   

The architect's job is to design the building to support the weight of the floors, roof, occupants, and everything else in an apartmnet.  They do this by calculating how much weight certain "bearing" structural pieces can hold and then the carpenters or "framers" put those pieces in place while they're building out all the other walls. 

Once our framers had the second floor joists (trusses) laid on the concrete block and a plywood subfloor in place, they were ready to start building walls.  This is when everyone stops you on the street and says, "wow, that building is really coming along" because we can see progress when we see walls, even though the stuff we put in before the walls was progress too, it just doesn't look like it from the outside! 

All of the walls in this project are built the old-fashioned way, by hand on the floor out of the best grade lumber we could get our hands on.  There are a lot of pre-made wall systems out there and they may be great but we're going with tried and true here.   

  The head carpenter will lay out a room in chalk ahead of everyone else.  He then cuts the bottom board of the wall (called the bottom plate) and lays it where it will later be attached.  The head guy will also lay out the closets, doorways, etc. to make sure they go in exactly the right place and that they're exactly the size they need to be. 

Next they mark the location of the vertical supports (studs), every 16" as measured from the center of a stud to the center of the next stud (16"on-center).  Then another two guys will come in and put the studs in place and fasten them on to the bottom plate.  Then they attach a "top plate" to the other end of the studs and the wall is done.    

Walls are laid out and assembled on the floor and then raised and fastened into place.​  The exterior walls seen here are being braced temporarily until the other walls of the rooms and closets are in place.

Then, as a group, they raise the completed wall into place and fasten it, making sure to brace it with diagonal 2x4's so it stays straight (plumb).  It's fastened at the bottom where it meets the floor and also at the top where a second "top plate" is staggered across the joints between the walls to "tie" them together. 

Gregg ties two sections of third-floor wall together with the second top plate.  ​The wall sections, including openings for windows and doors, are assembled on the ground.

The walls all around the outside are placed first, then the framers begin filling in the interior walls framing in rooms as well as details like closets, and stairways.