Finishing up the Framing
With
the porch framing finished, I moved inside to construct the interior walls.
Once done with the interior walls, I could call for the framing inspection.
The
first wall runs through the center of the cabin from one end to the other. This
is a load-bearing (loft) wall and has two door openings, one for the bathroom
and one for the bedroom. Once that was in place, I framed the wall that divided
the bathroom and the bedroom. The last bit of vertical framing was a short wall
for the shower and the closet in the bedroom.
 |
| Bedroom |
Once
I finished up with the vertical walls, I still had to install the floor joists
for the loft. The loft will cover the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. Our plan
is to use the area above the kitchen and bathroom as a sleeping loft, and to
use the area above the bedroom for storage.
 |
| Bathroom |
 |
| Loft Joists |
I
was able to meet the building inspector the day he came, and was given a list
of a few things that needed to be added. First, I had to add hurricane ties to
the roof rafters. This was no big deal and only took about an hour. The next
issue was that I had used screws to attach the floor joist hangers. The problem
was that the screws were not shear rated, so I crawled under the cabin, backed
out one screw at a time and replaced it with a shear rated nail. Not and
expensive fix, but time consuming and a pain in the neck! The last, and most irritating
requirement was that I needed to add deck tensioners to the front porch. The
tensioners were about $45 and only took about ½ hour to install, but my porch
is only 4 feet wide!
Once
I had made the repairs, I called for a re-inspection and the inspector signed
off. Now on to the wiring!
