- Building your own home: Our dream renovation
- Our Dream Renovation: 02 Designing Our New Home
- Our Dream Renovation: 03 Council Approval Process
- Our Dream Renovation: 04 Excavation
- Our Dream Renovation: 05 Strip footings and Piers
- Our Dream Renovation: 06 Subfloor Frame
- Our Dream Renovation: 07 Wall & Roof Framing
- Our Dream Renovation: 08 Lock Up
It’s now time to talk about the wall and roof framing stage of our project. I have had many favourite stages with this project, but this one is where I felt the most progress was made. At the end finally seeing it take shape was awesome and very satisfying.
It is good to note that by this point I had already locked in a roof truss supplier and had a provisional delivery date set. This is important as there can be a large lead time in the manufacturing of roof trusses.
Custom Making The Wall Framing
On the 25th of Feburary 2019, I started cutting and standing the wall frames. However, before this I needed to mark out my walls. I measured out all my external wall frames and chalked a straight line.
The bottom plates were nailed down and the stud positions were marked out. 600 centers everywhere mostly, except 450 centers in the bathrooms. The door and window openings, stud junctions were all marked out as well.
Why I chose to custom make the wall frames
There were several reasons why I chose to custom make my wall frames – rather than buy prefabricated frames.
- Flexibilty. The flexibilty of custom making frames meant I had the choice to change the layout where I saw fit. Obviously not anything external, but more so the internal aspects. For instance I changed the ensuite layout and downsized it to make the walk in robes larger (the ensuite originally was way too oversized).
- Quality. I had the chance to ensure the timbers used were true and straight. Using up the bowed timbers for nogins or double studs where I was able to straighten them.
- Eliminate discrepancies. When renovating an existing home, tieing into the new and the old could create different types of discrepancies. For example, different heights and levels. I resolved height and floor level issues quite easily, without having to chop into a prefabricated frame.
- Money saving. I did end up saving money by making the frames myself, but remember though, I did sacrafice time.
Although, the number one reason I decided to custom make the wall framing was because of ease. I could only get extra hands to help on the weekends. I usually come home from work to spend a couple of hours each afternoon working on the house. Custom making the frames enabled me to be able to work on the frames whenever I wanted, without having to rely on having extra sets of hands to help me lug around heavy prefabricated frames.
Just remember, custom making the wall frames isn’t for everyone. It is recommended to be trade skilled at least. You want everything to be precise, we are talking about the bones of your home here! Also, the time factor is also the biggest reason why many would prefer prefabricated frames over custom making. You could cut months off a project with prefabricated frames.
Roof Framing
The wall framing was up and standing, therefore we are able to make a start with the roof framing. The walls were temporary braces and straightened ready for the roof framing install.
Every external and internal corner of the building was plumbed and temporary braced. I installed all the strap bracing and ply bracing where needed. Lastly, I ran stringlines and straightened my walls, ready for the roof trusses to be installed.
With all this done I could start standing the roof trusses. The roof structure was a simple skillion design. Most of the house had full span trusses, wall to wall. Our main upstairs living, kitchen and dining had a pitched roof with 11m 150×45 LVL rafters. They were supported by 2, 300×65 GL8 engineered beams.
The framing stage was a long and tiring process, but like I said before, seeing it up and standing at the end was a really good feeling. We got a really good look and feel of what our new home was going to look like!
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Wall & Roof Framing Stage Costs
| Description | $ Costs |
| Wall framing materials: – Timber: 90×35, 90×45 & opening headers – Nails/screws, strap bracing, plywood, etc | $5,872.51 |
| Bunnings materials: For the wall framing | $480.08 |
| Roof framing materials: – A supplied by my truss manufacturer: – Trusses and LVL rafters – Triple grips, gang nails, nail/screws – Brackets – 70×35 temporary bracing (later to be used as eave framing materials) | $14,105.34 |
| Bunnings materials: For the roof framing | $ 331.94 |
| Windows | $11,264.86 |
| Total | $32,054.73 |
Total Project Costs To Date
- (02) Designing and planning stage: $13,428.20
- (03) Council application stage: $6,171.20
- (04) Excavation stage: $1,163.82
- (05) Strip footings & piers stage: $3,079.13
- (06) Subfloor frame stage: $12,542.85
- (07) Wall & roof framing stage: $32,054.73
- Total costs: $68,439.93