Framing a New Interior Wall for Dummies

Wall framing

So you think you want to build a new wall, eh? That sounds like fun. Let's see what the internet has planned for you... ummm, we'll Google it... oh, and here's a post at our favorite HowTo website, eHow.com: "How to Nail a Wall Frame."¹ And it's by one of our favorite eHowian "contributors," an early childhood educator who goes by the name of Elizabeth Knoll. Hey, haven't we seen that name before? Sure we have: Knoll is already a six-time winner of the Antisocial Network's Dumbass of the Day award, having picked up plaques in the carpentry, construction, electrical work and biology categories so far. Is it time for Liz to get another of our fabulous plaques? After all, she's proven in the past that she feels free to give advice even when she knows absolutely nothing about her topics: let's see what she has to say on this "simple" topic.

Elizabeth opens with an introduction, as all good eHow articles must (though there seem to be few that are "good"). That little paragraph informs us, among other pertinent facts, that

"Underneath a room's drywall is a wooden frame built of 2-by-4-inch boards. Each frame looks more or less the same."

Ummm, yeah, Pretty much true, though anyone who'd ever framed a wall, interior or exterior, would probably emphasize the importance of the frame instead of merely passing it off as something "[u]nderneath a room's drywall." That intro, however, gives you a pretty good idea of where Knoll's coming from: the land of dumbass freelancers.

We read through the instructions, which are pretty much correct – they should be, since they're little more than a copy, reword and paste job from Knoll's original source. You can tell that because it's about the only other place on the internet that tells you to use stud clips when framing (the source website's based in California, where the clips are needed to increase structural strength in seismically-active areas -- no one else uses 'em). We spotted a few dead giveaways that Liz is well outside her comfort zone with this topic. First, there's her lack of familiarity with the use of a plumb bob: "Hang a plumb bob from one of the top plate's ends. Place a mark on the floor where the plumb bob's end indicates."

Perhaps it's because her original source does a lousy job here, but Knoll's instructions only mark the end of the bottom plate, not its edge: You'll need to mark the corner, not just the end. or the wall may end up out of plumb. And then there are her instructions to

"Line up the bottom plate with the chalk line. Hammer 3-inch nails through the bottom plate and into the subfloor. Space the nails 16 inches apart."

Gee: we certainly hope someone suggested to her that she do more than just nail the bottom plate to the subfloor: hitting the floor joists would be a good idea, don't you think? And, of course, there's her discussion of nails:

• "Hammer 3 1/2-inch nails through the top plate..."
• "Hammer 3-inch nails through the bottom plate..." 
• "Hammer 2-inch nails through the stud-framing clip's nail holes..."

It's pretty clear that Elizabeth's unaware that you're supposed to specify more than just length of the nails used in framing. Do you want box nails? finish nails? 10d? 16d? Though she doesn't know it, this is important... Liz also has some problems with cutting studs:

"Measure the distance between the top plate and the bottom plate. Transfer this measurement to as many 2-by-4-inch boards as there are X marks on the bottom plate. Cut the boards to the appropriate length using a circular saw."

We think the builder should measure for each stud, not cut them all to the same length: doing that's a recipe for either wasted 2-by-4s or second cuts, in our experience. But hey, who are we to argue with an expert like Elizabeth Knoll? Whatever her expertise, we did have to laugh at this line in her introduction:

"Constructing a wall frame is simple enough for a novice homeowner to accomplish in one weekend."

Just WTF does she think said homeowner's doing? Given her unfamiliarity with the process and her proven lack of knowledge about home-building and -repair in general, it's no wonder that Elizabeth continues to collect Dumbass of the Day awards.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_12192624_nail-wall-frame.html

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DDIY - FRAMING CARPENTRY