As luck would have it, on the Saturday morning that I'd planned on starting the first long span of framing in the basement, I got a call from my friend Brad. He happened to be at the local Home Depot. Knowing that he has a mini-van capable of hauling a lot more than my Explorer, I asked him if I could meet him there and pick up a pile of 2x4's. He agreed to wait for me there while I high-tailed it down to meet him. Not only that, but he even helped me carry the 30 2x4's into my basement. I paid him back in beer and Karla's famous beef jerky.
Sunday I set to work on my first long wall. Just looking at all those 2x4's piled in my basement was sapping my energy even as I stood there. Instead of pounding four nails each into 27 2x4's I decided to run to Home Depot and rent a Framing Nail Gun.
This air gun was unbelievable! For $20 I could use the nailer for four hours. Well, once I got going with it, it only took me three hours to finish the whole wall. For me, that was $20 well spent. I had only planned on getting one 8 foot section done that weekend, and already I had a whopping 26 feet done. I returned the air nailer to Home Depot feeling pretty good.
I should have known it was too good to be true. Upon returning from Home Depot, I noticed the door to the garage was sticking more than usual. In fact, it was down right hard to open! Well it didn't take long to realize that the first span I put up was pushing up against the ceiling joists a little too much. I guess that's what I got for pounding it into place with a sledge hammer! My first thought was, "Screw it, I'll just sand down the door a little".
Well, a couple of days went by and decided that the right thing to do would be to take down the wall and trim the studs. Just for kicks I decided to measure from the center of the door to the garage, to the edge of my first wall - to see where it was pushing. Wouldn't you know it, in that exact spot one of the ceiling joists was warped. As the joist was torquing, the corner was pushing up on the ceiling.
Upon further inspection, this joist was just warped, it was REALLY warped. I pulled out the insulation and found out the cause. When that joist was put into place, the lower nail had MISSED the joist! It's a little hard to tell from the picture to the left, but the nail in the center was about an inch and a half from the joist. That's right, the joist had warped an inch and a half over. It looked like a piece of macaroni.
At this point I took down the section of the wall under this joist, and trimmed about 1/16 of an inch off of each stud. I then pounded the missing nail (from the picture above) back through (into my garage as it happens). I then cut a 14 1/2 inch long 2x4 and wedged it opposite the way the joist was warping. It worked like a charm.
Finally, I preceeded to put my newly trimed studs back together with their wall section - this time without the aid of the nail gun. This time the wall fit nicely, and even needed a little shimming just to keep it tight.
I spent the remainder of the week drilling holes in the floor boards to anchor the walls to the cement, as well as attaching the header to the ceiling joists. The blue wall in the floor plan below shows which span I completed:
