Framing’s the Issue
Last year at this time I was deep into my trauma of my deck repair that became a deck renovation that ultimately turned into a deep and dark hole of a deck replacement. The bad news with all that is a distant and fully healed wound at this point, but the knowledge gained about construction has lingered. As they always say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. That goes double with someone as impatient and impetuous as me. But the secret to surviving these projects for me is to keep them manageable if I’m going to try to do them myself. I really do know my limitations and really can envision myself building something like my newest endeavor, the Moonstruck Hobbit House playhouse for my granddaughters.
This morning I went out to the chosen site and took a tape measure to the spot and used the toe of my boot to scratch a rough outline of the structure. What that site visit did for me was to confirm my sense of the scale and furthermore to give me the confidence that it was all small enough to be something I can handle. I am purposefully keeping this simple so that it will be fun build and not drive me crazy with detailing that is beyond my capabilities. To begin with, building a structure that doesn’t need plumbing or electric (other than the low-voltage spotlights I will put on it’s front facade when it’s done) reduces the concerns by a lot. All that sequencing concern is rendered unnecessary. The sequencing for this playhouse is sort on a five step process: foundation (pressure-treated beams pinned with rebar), 2×6 frame walls accommodating a small irregularly-shaped door, a large open window and a boulder in the back that will jut into the interior, curved roof with a lip, stucco inside and out and then a simple shallow 4” green roof with ice plant flats on sandy potting soil. One, two, three, four, five. Easy peasy.
Obviously I know that the devil is in the details and things are never as easy as they seem when I gloss over them life so. Just the window and door framing for an amateur like me should be giving me some pause. Add to that, framing around the massive boulder at the back is probably a walk in the park for a pro, but I’m betting that I will struggle through the means and methods in a hunt and peck fashion, knowing it is all intended to look intentionally “rough” since it is just a playhouse after all. I’m also betting that the curved green roof may present a problem or two. I think the curve all gets handled with the circular saw (which Handy Brad will do) but there’s that whole thing about waterproofing it while still allowing for excess water to drain out of the soil so that the ice plant roots don’t rot. That sounds like a job for some careful leveling and a few backside drain holes, but I won’t know for sure until I get there.
I have found a simple project costing spreadsheet template and have already put together my materials list and priced it out from the website of a local lumberyard. I’m up to $3,000 in lumber so far, but that has been the easy part. This is where I have decided to stop and regroup for a moment. I know from the deck that getting the right Simpson hardware to hang the joists and build the framing walls most efficiently is a huge time-saver that makes the whole structural side of the equation work so much better. I know it can be done with generic L-brackets for the most part, but why kill myself when some construction company has gone to the trouble of manufacturing just the right brackets. I suppose I could draw this all out myself in detail and thereby figure out exactly what type and how many brackets I need, but I know my sister and brother-in-law have spent a long career in architecture knowing this stuff off the top of their heads. So, I find no dishonor in asking them to draw up a simple framing plan and telling me what brackets I will need to use. Since there are hundreds of different brackets, it is important to get the right ones out of the catalogue. I may find that the guys at the lumberyard will know all this tomorrow when I wander over there, but just in case, I sent out my “Help” email to Kathy and Bennett tonight.
I’m not sure why I’m in such a rush, but I am. I am always in a rush when I get a new project bit in my teeth. Handy Brad will help me with the hardest parts of cutting the roof joists and doing the stuccoing, and since he is on another job for another 4-6 weeks, I plan to get as much of this done myself between now and then. My goal is to get the foundation and floor laid and the walls framed and up without having it all too messed up and jury-rigged…not to mention not level. Handy Brad could not stand working on something that isn’t perfectly plumb, so i won’t do that to him if at all possible. My goal is to have the joists even marked off for cutting (should just be some simple geometry to do that), and all the little things like the green roof drainage and edging all figured out , if not executed.
We are planning to be in Italy for the last two weeks of March and the granddaughters arrive on April 15th, so I want this done, done, done by April 8th. That only leaves me a week after returning, so I will end up having Handy Brad for most of March on the job, but I just don’t think there will be all that much for him to do. But then again, I always underestimate the care and diligence Handy Brad puts into his work, so we’ll see where that all goes. The two things I can do to insure timely completion is to pre-order and have on hand all the materials so that there are no supply chain issues, and to do as much of the easier prep work myself as I possibly can.
The testament to some combination of the ease of this project and the naïveté of my project thinking is that after 36 hours I have figured out almost everything I think I need to know and do to make this Hobbit House a reality. I’ve gone so far as to reallocate the half yard of bark mulch on the site in my mind to another part of the hillside that could use a bit more. By tomorrow at this time I may have bought the lumber and have a framing plan in hand and then I will start this week to lay the pressure-treated lumber foundation. Then only framing will be the issue.