Photo house-cleaning. Getting rid of a lot of images on various clouds and creating albums on imgbb which is a fine, simple and free host. I'm not actually too fond of free hosts, for whatever reasons, and the inexpensive upgrades for imgbb include unlimited storage. The platform provides for every kind of sharing, resizing and file format. My current re-obsession with digital photography and a no-frills, smooth image host: win-win. Beats maintaining one's own website if one is not professional Added: The newer lines of mirrorless, per example, cameras are priced out of this world. My tripod is over 20 yrs old.
Legs feeling a little heavy this morning. My fitness watch had a badge challenge to run a 10k this weekend. I haven't run further than 5 miles (8k) for some weeks now because of the heat and humidity but decided to go for the 10k yesterday. It meant using my 8 mile route, which is actually nearly 13k all in. I needed a few walk breaks but got around it, although today my legs feel like they don't have much to give. My wife and I went for a walk around our 5 mile route, without breaking any speed records.
Contemplating rebulding an interior wall. Some of the wall studs are bowed and there's the remains of a very old frame for a sliding pocket door. It's the sort of thing that could easily be covered with lath and plaster walls to kludge over the bowed studs but it's hard to see how drywall is going to do anything other than really emphasise that things aren't in a great state. So I'm debating whether to try and fit "buddy studs" to the existing studs, screwing a 2x6 into the edge of the existing 2x4 studs, or to look to replace each stud one at a time, providing some central support to the cross beam before taking out the doorframe. I really want to just replace the whole lot and be done with it. I just need to be careful how I do it because it's a supporting wall and so I can't just take everything out and replace it at my leisure. Thankfully the way it's been done means I have a gap between two sets of wall studs supporting the main cross beam, which in turn supports the ceiling joists, so it should be easy enough to fit some new studs into the space while I take out the door. The rest of it should be easy enough, I can fit new studs appropriately spaced and remove the old ones after the new ones are fitted. Wish me luck on this one.... I hope I don't end up buried in the unsightly mess that was once the room above....
Build 2 temporary supporting walls (some studs a header and footer) on either side of the wall you need to remove. They will support the ceiling/floor above. Then you can take out, and rebuild, the old wall. (I watch This Old House and have seen them do this a number of times.)
I can't work either side, as one side still has studs and a full wall on it. I can't take that part down because it's the wall in our living room, and I'm not ready to gut the living room. I discovered this evening that two of the wall studs are supported by nothing more than a bit of floorboard, so replacing those isn't going to be structurally awkward. It appears what I have is two stud walls with a couple of inches between them, and I'm only looking at taking down one face of it, and even then I'm doing it a stud or two at a time. Along the way I'll move the two studs that are supported by floorboard only and move them so they are supported by the floor joists. I will need to come up with something to support the ceiling joists above before I take out the door frame, which might look something like your temporary supporting wall. It just can't be too involved, because I need to take out the old door header that's about six feet wide, so I'll need a gap big enough to remove that. If nothing else getting the lumber home from the yard was interesting. I managed to tie it to the roof of the car, although driving home was the slowest I think I've ever driven that road. No sudden acceleration, no sudden braking, no hard cornering, and mostly keeping to about 45 even when the speed limit was 55. Thankfully getting the lumber off the roof didn't involve any sudden collapses. And for good measure I now have a 30-foot length of rope that I can use for other silly adventures.
Taking my wall project slowly. So far I've removed one stud and propped the nearest joist using the stud. I don't think that's necessary but it's a precaution because I want to remove a few studs, then fit a sturdy piece of wood across the floor joists. That will allow me to slide new studs into place without having to deal with the step down from the floor level to the floor joist level, but means taking out a few adjacent studs while I do it. Before taking them out I've found a place I can support the existing cross beams without getting in the way of what I want to do. The good news is that the upstairs room is still the upstairs room, and no part of upstairs has made its way into downstairs as of yet.
Two new studs are fitted to my wall. Three studs are removed. Many superfluous nails have been identified, and a few expletives deployed. I've also got a cross bar all the way along the bottom of where the new studs will go, which means I don't have to get them into place below the floor line. Hopefully it won't be long before I can start propping the cross beams and get the door frame removed completely. Thankfully as I remove each stud I gain another piece of wood I can cut to create a temporary prop, so I can support things as I remove larger parts of the wall. And still upstairs remains upstairs, which is always a good place to be.
Seven studs are fitted and the door frame is removed. That was slow going, trying to fit temporary support studs to the cross beams behind the doorframe, so I could then pull endless nails stuck into everything from every conceivable angle and finally take it all down. When I managed to release the beam across the top of the door it was a lot heavier than I expected it to be, even knowing it was a pretty big piece of wood. Looking at the top cross beams I suspect I could have just taken out the whole lot and it still wouldn't have fallen in. But given the conequences of upstairs becoming downstairs and the potential for the attic and roof to follow I figured I'd rather err on the side of caution, and then add some more caution. Now I have four more studs to cut and fit, and three more studs to remove. And still upstairs continues to be, well, upstairs. Which is always a good place to be.
All the studs are now removed and all bar one of the new studs are in place. I decided to hold off on the last stud because for now I've got more access to the external wall than I'll ever have, and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to get some insulation cut to the odd shape and fitted. I'm really pleased with how the new stud wall looks - everything is straight, and everything is level. Given I never framed a wall before I'm pleased with the outcome. It's curious to see just how much the existing studs have bowed over the years. The supporting cross beam is about 15 feet long and looks like it has sagged by about half an inch in the very middle, over the course of the last 110 years or so. Hopefully the new studs I've put in will mean that the next 100 years won't see any further sagging. Upstairs is still upstairs, and looking ever-more likely to stay that way.
House is still under contract, all contingencies have clear, closing between Sept 1 and Sept 8. We've packing and moving a bunch of boxes every day. Picking up the moving truck Friday around noon. Hope to load and unload one set of furniture on Friday, and if I get lucky, load the second load. Furniture all day Saturday. If all goes extremely well, we may have everything out of the house by Saturday night. And then I'll be in traction on Sunday...
Lazy day today although I took the chance to look more closely at the piece of wall I now have more access to. Where the house has a front bay it looks like the corners of bricks touches, leaving a triangular air gap behind the mortar seam. This won't help with either sound or thermal insulation, but it's hard to see just what I'm up against so it's tricky to figure out what best to do about it. My temptation is to drill some small holes in the stud that's nailed to the wall and spray copious amounts of foam into the cavity, I just don't want to find that it swallows up endless foam and keeps wanting more, all because there's a gap in there somewhere I didn't know about. That would seem like a major fail. It would be really handy to remove the stud completely, although it's nailed to the wall using some pretty hefty nails and I really don't think I've got space in there to wield the wrecking bar, which is the only tool I have that stands any chance of pulling the nails out. There's also a chance the stud is nailed to the support beam above, from above, in which case I have exactly zero chance of removing them.
You know they've had trebuchets since medieval times, right? Great for moving heavy things a long way, and quickly too.