A Garage Room for the Total Dummy

building a new interior wall

If you ask our staff do-it-yourself types, some of the absolute worst eHow.com content – "How to Use a Butt Plug" notwithstanding – was written about carpentry and home-repair by people who lacked the slightest clue. Let's take as an example one Jason Gillikin, whose attempt to explain "How to Make an Enclosed Room in Your Garage" for eHow (you can now find it at the niche site Hunker.com) is a classic example of freelanced babble without a foundation.

Gillikin bragged of "various degrees in the liberal arts"¹ in his eHow bio, but didn't mention any experience as a carpenter or even an amateur DIY home repair guy. The lack of experience is manifest in his post, which is rife with mistakes and ill-considered shortcuts. It's quite telling that the sole "reference" he claimed to have used was a post about "How to Frame a Wall." About the only thing Jason seems to have gotten right from that article is this comment:

"There should not be a stud along the floor where the door will be located..."

...which, although he uses "stud" incorrectly, is an observation so many eHow freelancer forget to make. Nonetheless, Gillikin managed to make an error in his post so serious that it wipes out any possible goodwill:

"...create a frame that is rectangular on all four sides, with vertical support studs 18 inches [sic] apart."

Wait, what??? No, you moron, even your sole reference clearly said to place studs every 16 inches on center, not 18 inches apart (which might mean 19½" O.C.)!

Among Gillikin's other botched instructions are such suggestions as,

1. "...to avoid the hassle of re-wiring... locate the room in an area with electrical access and an overhead light already installed."
2. "Using 3-inch nails, nail the frame to the wall at a stud. If possible, secure the top of the frame to the ceiling or rafters using 3-inch nails as well."
3. "Apply paneling to both sides of the newly framed walls."
4. "Insert a door into the frame. Nail the door frame into the slot in the wall."

Our staffers' comments:

1. It's not going to be much of a room with no outlets on two or even three walls. And wouldn't you rather have a separate light switch in the room?
2. "If possible" nail it to the ceiling? Friggin' moron, it has to be fixed to the ceiling. And, for that matter, to the floor, which you ignored entirely.
3. WTF is this "paneling"? Shouldn't the walls (and ceiling) be insulated? Shouldn't there be some form of climate control?
4. WTF is this "slot"? For what it's worth, the doorway is supposed to fit the manufacturer's rough opening specifications, not " a framed hole matching the dimensions of the door with its frame.."

From all this it's obvious that Gillikin not only had never built an enclosed room in a garage; very likely never built anything involving framing at all. When we see alleged instructions this wrong and this useless, we have no choice but to name the author a Dumbass of the Day.

¹ According to LinkedIn, he studied "Moral philosophy, political theory, comparative religion, 20th-century history, Latin."

DDIY - FRAMING