FINALLY!! The saga begins

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:39 pm

Rod Gervais wrote:

Throw it away - give it to a friend - send it in a shoe box to needy people of the world.............

I don't know - save it for your next 30 studios.........

I thought you were my friend! Next 30 studios indeed! If I survive this one it'll be a miracle... much less even one more! Confused

Quote:

Anything else more efficient that you would recommend?

Afraid not - if there was I would be recommending it instead.

That's what I was afraid of... Very Happy

Quote:

Sorry Max - that's why things just build up piles in my garage......... that price em cheap and then package more than I need.......... Wink

Hmmmmm... so THAT's what the hell happened to all the room in the basement here!?!

Well... didn't make today's shipment, but since it's coming from ATL, it should be here Monday...

O.K. I got an idea here... If anyone needs strapping/banding material for your studio build, please contact me. I HAVE THE BANDING MATERIAL YOU NEED!!

Just pay for shipping and give me as accurate of length as you can. (I'll send you PLENTY of extra!) I'll send it to you ASAP, and I'll gladly take PayPal. This isn't for me to make money off of. It's to help out other studio owners/builders.

Might I ask if we could put a message in a sticky? or maybe I should send a PM to BigTree about a sticky in the "For Sale/Trade" forum?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:12 pm

Last night I continued work on the west exterior wall. I got a late start due to a couple of things, including ordering the poly strapping material from Uline.

Using the poly strapping, staples and caulk, I'll put up bands of strapping at regularly spaced vertical intervals to keep it held in place. I'll staple it to each stud with a staple and a dollop of caulk to prevent any buzzing of the straps in the stud face.

It wasn't all that expensive... $39.00 plus shipping and since it's shipping from ATL, it should be here Monday. The only glitch is that the smallest roll I could find was 3000 feet! Lemme illustrate the issue... The building is 30'x40'. So to go completely around the interior, that's (30+40)*2=140 feet. If I put 3 bands on the top 4', that 140*3=420 feet. Assuming I were to do that again across the bottom... that's another 420 feet. 420*2=840 feet of strapping used. OK, so I've got 2200 extra feet of strapping... what in the heck am I gonna do with that much extra?!?!? Actually, it'll probably be quite a bit more than that. The exterior wall in the CR/Lounge (East Wall) doesn't get that much insulation. So, what to do?

I made an open offer here to anyone needing this strapping for their studio; to contact me with how many feet they need and their shipping address. I'll ship it out and just PayPal me the shipping costs and it's yours. You see, I don't want (or have room) for all kinds of these materials to spend the next 20 years or so in storage.

OK... back to the build...

I managed to get the last of the gypsum in the stud bays. Instead of going back and shimming up the gypsum, I decided to go ahead and screw it to the walls and then go back and nail the furring strips. It definitely makes for a tighter bond to the wall considering how bowed and cupped my existing studs are... and ended up putting screws in all the other gypsum anyway... so why not start that way?

I also got the furring strips put up as far as 10PM and a nailgun dare take me. I actually managed to get the furring strips in the studbays that complete the Isolation booth. I still have to caulk them and get the insulation in.

I have a meeting this evening, so no work tonight. I have a show Saturday night, so there isn't time to a whole lot to get done, but I'll try as hard as I can to finish the furring strips, caulking and insulation by Monday... with a minor exception...

Thomas said he could come over Sunday and help me with the ceiling joists and ledger board. YES!!! Hopefully we can get the ledger and most of the joists up in one day.

The ledger board is supposed to be attached to the existing studs. Because the lags will be in the studs, that means that the joists will need to be offset from the East wall studs. Rather than going all wonky about it, I'll just shift them to the middle of the stud bays by 12" and run them 24" OC. Then, we'll put double horizontal cripples in between the existing studs at the bottom of the ledger board. Then come back with 5" lags and lag-bolt the bottom edge of the ledger to the top cripples every 24", but offset by a couple of inches so they won't interfere with the ceiling joists... unless I hear otherwise... Right Rod?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:12 pm

Sounds good to me Max.

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:13 am

It's cold and dry out there again... Low's in the 20's and high's in the 30's.... brrrrrr. It's so dry too. My hands are cracking and despite using lotions, they're getting pretty painful.

I didn't get a lot done because of a few things I'll touch on in a minute, but I got as much done as I could.

I've gotten all the 1x2 furring strips up that I had. I'm about 16 short on having enough to get the west exterior wall done. Since I have a bunch of 1x4 material laying around, it's time to haul the tablesaw to the studio and make my own. I don't know if I'll get the saw down there this morning, but I'm going to try.

So far, this is what I have done with the gypsum and furring strips. All of the little bays do make for slow going when you only have a couple of hours a day to work.

OK... I managed to get the saw down to the studio. I ripped a couple of 1x4's and managed to get all the way to the doorway before having to call it done for the day and get to my FOH gig.

This is the crow's nest view from the scaffolding against the west wall corner. It's pretty messy and disorganized at the moment. I' need to finish organizing things a bit more, then it should be quite a bit easier to work in there.

Thomas is supposed to come by tomorrow to give me a hand getting the ceiling joists up. We have got to at least get the joists done. The exterior walls have got to get completely stabilized. The reason being is that I'm about to stop construction for 2-6 weeks.

Both my brother and I have a little heart problem. It's a leaky valve in the heart. It's called Mitral Valve Prolaps or MVP. Since my brother has Muscular Dystrophy, his MVP is getting to be a serious problem. He's going in for surgery on Wed to have the valve replaced. Since it's just the two of us in the family now, it's absolutely necessary that I be there to help him.

This means that construction comes to a halt for at least two weeks and possibly longer.

I've got bracing on the walls, but it's only temp bracing. I'm afraid that if it sits for much longer without the strength of the ceiling joists, that the lumber could warp and twist to the point that the walls will not be square or plumb.

The push is on for tomorrow. We've only got one day to get as much done as we can. I've got to head into the day gig on Monday to double check on things and then I've got to get on the road.

I literally only have a couple of hours this morning to work. I've got a FOH gig tonight and I've got to finish a bunch of wiring up so I can be ready for soundcheck at 4pm.

I'll get an entry up tomorrow evening.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:08 am

I got started prepping things pretty early this morning. I got all the tools together and even snapped a chalkline of where to cut the existing OSB…

Thomas got here about 12:30PM, so we jumped on getting the ledger board up. It actually went pretty quick.

The first shot is the end above the lounge entrance. I double lagged the ends.

The 2nd shot is the middle of the building. I double studded and sank a lag in each one of the ledger’s and studs. Once I get back from taking care of my brother, I’ll go in and add the double cripples at the bottom of the ledger. Then, I’ll lag into the top cripple, about 4″ to the left of each joist.

WOO HOO!!! Completed ceiling joists!

We finished just a bit after dark. I’ll try to get some pics in the morning before I head out to take care of my brother.

I thought I had actually taken a couple of shots of the Hurricane Straps on the exterior wall side. Either I didn’t get it copied or it didn’t get saved in the camera. At any rate, I went ahead and added the straps just to be sure.[/img]

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:03 pm

My brother's come through his surgery pretty well. Thanks to everyone who's said an extra prayer.

Even though I'm out of town, a few things are still going on anyway...

The banding/strapping showed up Monday before I left. So, when I do get home, I can get all of that up.

2 cases of SC175 arrived on Friday. I ordered it from CTS in Chicago, Ill for $3.79/tube, plus shipping! CTS also has backer rod and fireproof caulk.

I reviewed the prints at great length... waiting rooms are good places to do the mundane things in life... or to do some needed tedious work.

I found a couple of things that I had been skipping over and skipping over. One of them is the fire barrier and bracing on the exterior west wall... where it will tie to the angled wall. While looking insignificant, it's a pretty complicated bit of work to get constructed correctly.

The braces have to tie to the exterior stud bays. The 2x4 assemblies then get a notch, and a 2x10 gets set in place. That 2x10 is what actually gets set as a firewall against the interior wall's top plates and edge bands on their ceiling joists. Pretty tricky stuff.

I also found that I need to go back and double check and possibly rework the exterior walls to add additional 2x8 continuous blocking at the ceiling height. I just hope this isn't too bad of a screw up.

I know I can add the blocking. That's not the issue. It's whether I'll be able to put the blocking in with a notch around all the furring strips. It'll all get caulked, so my guess is that it will be fine. The blocking is part of the fire barrier and not there for structural. Oh joy... MORE caulking!

The other thing I need to get on order are a couple of bundles of Rockwool insulation.

I've got calls into the hardware distributor for the door hardware. I hope he calls me next week. I at least need to get hinges and hardware for the exterior door ordered ASAP.

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:47 pm

Man... what a brutal week.... and it's only Thursday!

My brother is off the ventilator!! WOO HOO! (Thanks again, for those that offered up a few extra words on his behalf!)

He's not quite got his sea legs by any stretch of the imagination, but he's evidently out of the woods... or so it seems.

The ride up on Monday and the ride back last night were brutal from the aspect that I ran into heavy snow both ways. Quite the nerve racking experience for an old fart who only drives on the stuff every 2-3 years!

At any rate... I managed to get a few things done once I managed to get motating this morning;

I got 20 2x8x18 spruce boards delivered for the ceiling rafters!

I called and left Rod a message about some questions I had...

... and I started calling around again, about Constant Voltage Regulator Transformers for the clean power distribution panel. Seems that ACME is here in NC, so shipping might no be outrageous if I can't find something locally.

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 6:48 am

After a long brutal drive in the snow, I crashed hard.

I got up this morning and actually decided I HAD to get some work done on the studio... I'm well over 3 weeks behind where I wanted to be.

I called Thomas and asked him if he could help me tomorrow, and he said he could help me today! WOO HOO!!

We jumped right on the lounge roof rafters.

It's been a LONG time since I framed a roof, so it was a bit intimidating at first, but we got the master rafter all fitted and it was off to the races!

We got all but the last outside rafter in before Thomas had to bail out.

Once we knocked off and I scarfed down dinner, I popped back out to finish getting the rest of the 5" lag bolts in the ceiling joist ledger.

WHEW! A bit tired and a bit sore... but well worth it!

Here's the images of the double horizontal plates and the newly framed lounge to studio entry door:

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:38 am

My brother is making some slow progress in getting better from his heart surgery... VERY slow. Muscular Dystrophy is surely what is slowing his healing. If anyone wants to say an extra prayer, I ain't gonna ask you to stop.

Yesterday we made a decision I hope we won't regret...

I got ready to put the plywood on the roof, but there was some side to side wobble action in the lounge structure. It wasn't bad, but significant enough to cause me some concern about climbing up there with plywood.

I attached a couple of stiffener boards to the interior after I made sure things were still plumb. After talking it over with Thomas, we decided to go ahead and put the first layer of OSB on the exterior to get the rigidity we'll need for the roof to go on. The stiffener boards were OK, but only being a 1x4, we felt like we might as well go ahead and put the OSB up since it's going to go up sooner or later, right?

What concerns me is the fact that we have rain and thunderstorms in the forecast for today (Sunday) and tomorrow, with wind expected this afternoon. If we can at least get the roof on, we can deal with the plywood getting a bit wet for a couple of days. The OSB getting wet is another story.

Pix and updates will be coming later this afternoon or tonight.

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:31 am

I snagged a couple of pix of the lounge progress so far...

You can't really see how much of the roof is on, but it's about half...

Here is a shot of the 2x6 supporting the end rafter. It rests on top of the 2x10 ceiling joist ledger board and is lagged in with 2 -6" Lag Bolts.

A view from the roof...

The roof rafter ledger board is lagged in with 6" lag bolts.

This is an updated shot of the ceiling joist ledger board with the extra 5" lag bolts.

A view of the lounge's kitchen window.

The plumbing all being on the exterior wall is really going to keep the noise level from getting to the rest of the studio... from left to right... Toilet, Shower, Bathroom Sink drain and kitchen Sink Drain.

The North and East elevations....

Since I probably leave to help my brother in another day... I figured I better put in a few extra hours and get some more caulking done...

Thomas and I are going to hopefully get in a full day tomorrow. We're going to try to get the roof finished and felt paper on and the second layer of OSB on w/Tyvek...

OOOF!

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:16 am

Another pseudo red letter day...

My brother is starting to make some real headway towards recovery from his surgery! He's been moved to a step-down unit. He "passed" his modified barium swallow and is able to start eating soft foods. Hopefully within a week, he'll be ready for moving to a rehab center for a week or two, then he can get to go home. Then and only then can I really get back to steady work on the studio.

Between now and then, all I can do is try to capitalize on time off and get as much as I possibly can, when I'm here.

Speaking of capitalizing on time...

We fought the cold wind to get the last of the CDX on the roof! We're not completely done, however. The felt paper and shingles still need to need to get put on.

Oddly, my neighbors across the street are having a new roof put on... me thinks it's time to pay the neighbors a visit! Hopefully the contractor will give me a good price for the work and I can get a finished roof pretty quickly.

The area (wedge) between the roof and the top of the wall is closed in on the south side. It's only got 1 layer of OSB, but at least when bad weather comes out of the southwest, the only thing that needs to be covered is the doorway... and hopefully that won't be but for another day or so!

I'm going to try to get the 2nd layer of OSB on today and the housewrap up. If I can get that done, I might be able to get the north wall's wedge closed in and then all I'll have is the exterior finish and sofit/facia to put on!

Of course, I had already expected to be at this point several weeks ago, but as with life... you must be prepared to be hit with delays and unexpected things. All you can do is just try not to be disappointed and continue to seek ways to continue on without becoming bitter. This has been such an up-hill battle, that it would have been easy to give up at many different points.

This being something from my early dreams, this cannot be easy to erase from my being. It was music that brought me back from the brink of dispiar. Playing music got my mind back into the game of life. Listening to music has always inspired me onward. This dream cannot, nor will I let it fade while I am able to continue towards the end result.

Music is the very thread of social fabric. No matter which style, it must be preserved. The goal then is to create the best, most comfortable and creative environment I can, to facilitate the creative flow of music. Therefore, I must continue toward that goal.

(In other words... I better get back at it and get some work done!)

Progress pic's later...

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:58 am

I busted my butt yesterday to get as much of the OSB protected as I could before a forecast winter weather advisory hit.

I zipped over to Lowe's and I got a front door for the studio. The mrs. suggested (ahem) that I get a matching door for the front door to the house, or one that's got a smaller oval. I had kinda' thought about one that was a square window... Guess what I got?

I also picked up the 9 pieces of OSB I was short and some aluminum sealing tape for the kitchen window.

When I got back, I jumped on getting the OSB up. 3 full pieces of OSB actually go pretty quick.

Here's a tip for handling OSB/sheathing alone... Go along the bottom sill plate and drive nails in between the bottom plate and your floor/subfloor (whichever you have). But only drive them in an inch or two. (I used 16D sinkers)

You can then lift the sheetgood in place and let it rest on the nails while you nail it in place. When you're done, just pull the nails out.

Once the OSB was up, I fought the Tyvek housewrap.If you've never done housewrap solo... brother, you haven't lived!

Here's a tip for doing housewrap by yourself... If you've got a shop broom... you know, the 24"-30" jobbies with the long handles? Well, you put the broom handle inside the roll and lean the whole thing against the building.

Pull an edge off and carefully (e.g. not to fast) walk the distance that you need to cover... plus a couple of inches.

I started at the roll end and trimmed it off. Then I went as high as I needed and stapled the top edge corner as straight as I could, and overlapped around the corner... keeping it as straight as possible.

Then I went to the halfway point on the wall and going as high and straight as possible again, I put in just a few staples in the top edge. (and leaving the rest loose.)

I proceeded to the corner and repeated the staples in the top edge only.

Once I got the loose end top edge straight, I pulled it tightfrom the bottom and stapled the bottom edge and then moved up and secured the loose edge.

Lather, rinse, repeat for the other side. Then go back and staple the field in place.

I will say this much. No matter how you do it, putting up housewrap by yourself is a PITA. It doesn't look all that pretty and it's not perfect by any means. But, at least it is protecting the exterior from damaging weather.

Once the OSB was up, I got the door set. Installing a door by yourself is tricky. You cannot do it without a few clamps to hold some edges... but it can be done.

I had one nail in the top frame that evidently I was trying to drive through a knot. I went through three nails before it FINALLY drove through and into the framing. Man... what a challenge.

Not much is gonna' get done on the exterior today... cold, nasty drizzling, sleet/freezing rain and a high today that MIGHT come out of the low 30's.

So, today is going to be all inside work... starting with getting on the door hardware for the actual studio room doors. The vendors were supposed to have sent me pricing. But to date, only one of the 3 has. Some calls about plumbing and electrical. are also on tap.

I also need about 3 more tubes of the SL1 concrete caulking. So I might just make a run to Greensboro to get that as well.

If the weather breaks, I'll try to get some pix up.

Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:39 am

Just as with exercise, you gotta' work through the pain... pain is relative... and relatives are a pain....

In other words, I've got to head back home and take care of my brother. (heheheh)

He's actually doing quite a bit better. He's going to be ready to go to a rehab center for a week or two, then he'll finally head home.

In the meantime, I get a few days further and further behind... Oh well. My brother's the last in my family, and you have to take care of family.

Here's about 3 days worth of work... The starting point:

I've got to get out of here pretty quick today. The truth of the matter is that since I don't have time to put felt paper on, I had contemplated putting some Tyvek on the roof as a temporary measure. After putting a piece of it down on some boards and experiencing how slick it is... NO WAY! I have no desire to end up in the hospital because I was stupid enough to do something silly as a temporary measure.

So, I ended up grabbing some 50 year silicon rubber caulk and just caulked the seams. It certainly can't hurt in the long run and it solves the leaking issue for a week, or until I get back.

This last shot kinda' gives you the real perspective of how darn big this place is... it's kinda' scary. And I'm gonna frame, wire, finish and have this thing ready by May?!? OOOF! I better be gettin' REAL busy!

Tomorrow (and the next few days) will be phone calls to vendors for door hardware, electrical, updating the plumber, locating a new HVAC contractor.... man... there is still SOOOOO much to take care of before I can really get to framing the walls...

Maybe a couple of days on the phone will be good to do...