Wiring wizardry

Friday, June 24:

I'm about three-fourths done with the wiring in the new room.  As I suspected, the hardest part is getting juice from the electrical panel at the front of the house – via the garage ceiling – to the floor of the new room.  The photo below shows the general scheme.


At top-right, where the wall joins the ceiling, the boxy coffer is a "chase" that holds many of the wires coming from the breaker panel.   I will pull a new wire through that chase, then turn left (where I have cut into the ceiling).

 

Existing wires in the "chase."



One branch of my new circuit goes directly up into the office, where I am adding two outlets. The main branch, however, goes toward the far wall.   I had to cut a channel through the drywall so that I could drill holes through each joist below the pink insulation.
  

In the top photo, notice that there are two wires.   The wire on the right is a CAT-6 ethernet cable that will go from the office to the family room, to be used for "DirecTV on Demand."   It will connect the router to the TV box, allowing downloads of video content.  For the past year, I've had this wire strung through the interior of the house to make the connection.  Now, I can finally route it properly through the ceiling and walls.

At far left, the electrical and ethernet wires emerge from the wall (garage is on the other side). I am routing almost all the wiring for the new Tea Room through these floor joists (which also form the dining-room ceiling).  At right, they go up into the wall of the tea room for electrical outlets.

The two existing blue boxes on the left face into the office for telephone and electrical. The outlet box on the right is part of my new circuit. One of the three wires is power – arriving via the dining room ceiling and garage ceiling (previous photos).  Another wire will carry power to the outlets under the Tea Room window.  The third wire will carry power to the switch box shown below.

I have nailed a metal plate onto the floor plate in front of the three wires to help protect them from an errant nail when I am finishing the room with drywall and baseboards.

Four wires will go into this Tea Room switchbox:

1. A wire carrying power from the outlet in the previous photo (above)
2. A wire, controlled by a switch, going to a ceiling light (where the chandelier used to dangle).
3. A power wire going to the ceiling for a carbon monoxide/smoke detector.
4. The yellow wire (a 12/3-with-ground cable), which will carry power to a "split" outlet (pictured below), which will allow a floor lamp to be controlled by a switch. 

The "split" outlet. The upper part of the duplex outlet will be normal power, but the lower half will be controlled by a wall switch (for a floor lamp or table lamp).  To feed an outlet such as this, you need an extra wire within the cable. In addition to the black (hot), white (neutral), and copper (ground), there is a red wire that will only be "hot" when the switch is turned on. 

The framing is finished!

I finished the left closet, including door jamb, on Monday. Before putting away my nail gun, I installed furring strips in various corners, where needed, for drywall attachment.

I have three tasks remaining before I request another inspection:

1. Finish the rough wiring. (The biggest challenge is pulling wire from the circuit-breaker box at the front of the house to this new room. The code requires a new "arc-fault" circuit. To route the wire, I have begun cutting access channels into the drywall ceiling of the garage.)
2. Tie a new duct into the furnace to bring heating/cooling to this room.
3. Attach stucco mesh to the outside wall around the new bedroom window.

Once the inspection takes place (hopefully in about 3 weeks), I can stucco the outside, paint the stucco, tear down the scaffolding, and begin installing drywall in this room – and on the dining-room ceiling below it.

I am actually starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel – so much so that I have begun thinking ahead to the flooring. Prior to getting this Tea Room and the rest of the house carpeted, we want to look into ways to improve the stairway by adding a wood base and skirting under the spindles. The stair-carpet situation has bugged us for 20 years:  It looks cheap to have the carpet wrapping around the edges, and it is horrendously expensive and time-consuming for carpet installers to cut carpet around each stair spindle.

We'll start the investigation by getting some sticker-shock from a stairs contractor this week.

Some finish-framing

I decided to go out and buy the bifold doors for the little closets before finishing the door frames. Despite what is printed on packaging or on websites, I prefer to actually measure stuff before I install it.

Because I had taken great care to build the left side of this closet wall perfectly plumb, I was able to nail a piece of white jamb material directly onto the stud.  On the right side, however, I had to furr the jamb out using various scraps of wood to make it plumb. (The existing wall on the right is not perfectly vertical).

The white door jamb is pine, 4 1/2" wide. It protrudes 1/2" beyond the rough-framing (half-inch drywall will eventually butt up next to it.)

Above and below: The bifold door, purchased at Home Depot for about $35, is a close match to the style of doors throughout the house. I will not actually install the door until the very end, after the room is painted and carpeted. But this test shows that it fits – with proper clearances on all sides for hardware.







One closet down, one to go

Sunday-Monday-Tuesday (June 12-14):

I made a bit of progress over the weekend, framing the header and cripple-blocks over the french doors – and building one of the closets.


This is the view from within the new room, looking toward the old bridge. I cut away the sheetrock on the ceiling corners so that I could tie the cubby-closets into the attic-framing.  I am hoping to get the final framing done next weekend, including the door jambs for the two closets.



Closet framing ties into the attic floor. The yellow block is part of the HVAC plenum chamber. In a few weeks, I will tie a new 8" duct into this system so that the new room has its own AC/heating vent on the ceiling.

The painted areas on the floor are erasures.  I had originally planned to center a 5-foot french door unit on this wall, but I couldn't quite get the closets to fit without excessive customization.  So before I started on this opening for the 4-foot door unit, I spray-painted over my original floor markings in the hopes that I wouldn't get mixed up when drawing the new wall lines.  (Similarly, I still occasionally use Liquid Paper in my job at the L.A. Times when doing thumbnail-bookie shifts!)

BELOW:  This is how it originally looked.





Back to the bridge-wall, with a slight change of plans

After carefully drawing lines all over the floor, investigating the width of stock bi-fold closet doors, making allowances for door swing, door-knob depth and molding, I came to the conclusion last weekend that the 5-foot french-door unit that I purchased a few months ago is slightly too wide.

Perfectly straight lumber makes the job easier!

While I could proceed as planned, there would be too many headaches and custom cuts and compromises to make the little bedroom closets work.  Therefore, I intend to negotiate a swap this week at Lowe's:   trade in my 5-foot unit for 4-foot french doors.

With that decision made on Sunday, it was off to Home Depot for more studs. A huge advantage to buying lumber off the floor – rather than having it delivered – is that you can pick through the piles and get the straightest boards.

I asked a sullen teen-age worker at Home Depot to cut the straps on an unopened bundle of  lumber. The kid, who reminded me of Letterman's "Dwight the Troubled Teen," told me that he was not authorized to do so until the miscellaneous boards on top were sold. (Those boards were all warped and crooked). When he saw what was about to spew out of my mouth, he cut the straps.

I began  by nailing wall plates to the underside of the attic rafters.

The red arrows indicate the direction of the crown of each stud. I

want them all facing in the same direction, however slight they bow.

At checkout, the cashier offered me $50 if I would open a Home Depot credit account. I just couldn't resist getting seventy-something dollars worth of lumber for twenty-something dollars.

I had originally hoped to prebuild portions of this wall on the floor and then raise them into place – as one would do with brand new construction.  But this project requires joining new work with existing walls that aren't quite straight. Therefore, I found it is easier to build this wall stick-by-stick to ensure that everything is plumb and straight.

The center opening is 50" wide – to accommodate a 48" french door unit.

There will be a 4x6 header over this 50" door opening. Above, I have placed a temporary 2x6 onto the jack studs to test the width. This is a non-load-bearing wall – it holds nothing but itself up, therefore I don't have to worry about all the hassles I encountered when installing the new window on the exterior wall (temporary jacks, etc.)   Once I install the 4x6 header beam, I will nail cripple blocks above it – though they will serve no structural purpose other than as backing for drywall attachment.

Above and below: The angled cuts required a bit of trial and error, mostly because of the sloppy workmanship on the existing 20-year-old wall. I used a combination of nails and screws to mount the floor plates onto the plywood.

Before I tie the cubby-closet walls into this wall, I want to drop into Lowe's and take a measurement of the french doors.  The depth of the closets will be determined by the swing-back arc of the french doors. Any excess depth for the closets will rob us of bedroom space.  Anne tells me that every inch counts when fitting bedroom furniture. Although we intend to use this as a tea room, it may also need to function as a bedroom.

Closing in the office overlook




 

Sunday, June 5: In the original house configuation, an interior opening provided an overlook from the loft/office down into the dining room. The opening is shown high on the wall in the photo at left.

I am now framing the interior walls of the new upstairs tea room, and part of that work includes filling in this overlook window.

That high opening no longer overlooks the dining room. Ever since I built the tea-room floor, it has looked like this:  just a big opening between the existing office (foreground) and the new room that I'm building.

The first step to closing up this space was to remove the drywall on the inside edges, along with the metal flashing that created rounded corners (above).



Next, I nailed these studs into the opening.



Here is the view of those studs from the tea-room side.



I asked the building inspector if it would be okay for me to install drywall on the office-side before he returned to check the new framing. I explained to him that I wished to close this wall off sooner rather than later – to reduce the amount of dust coming into the office from the construction of the next-door room. He said that was fine.

Above, I chalked lines to mark the studs on the 4' x 6' sheet of half-inch-thick drywall, then used screws to attach it to those studs.  When driving drywall screws (or nails), it is important to sink them slightly below the surface – yet not so deep that they tear the surface paper.  The point is to sink them so that they can be covered with drywall compound.  If using nails, you need a special drywall hammer to sink them correctly.  With screws, the best way is to use a drill-driver that has adjustable torque.



Around the seam – where the new drywall joins the old drywall – I applied a layer of yellow mesh drywall tape. This mesh is much stronger than paper tape, so it is less likely that any future cracks will appear at the seam.



Finishing drywall is a multistep process using various-width blades to apply compound. I picked up this skill in the 1980s while building my house in Texas. With each completed room the finishing looked more and more professional.

Step 1, above, is the taping coat. I applied the compound along all the seams and over the screws using a 6" blade.

I will come back and complete steps 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 at the same time that I am finishing the walls in the tea room. But just so you know what those steps are:

Step 2:  Fill coat – Use a wider blade (8" or 10"), and apply a generous coating of drywall compound to fill in all low spots. Do not skimp – use plenty of compound!

Step 3: Finish coat – Use the widest blade (12"). Feather the compound out in large swaths across the wall, blending the new with the old.

Step 4:  Sanding – The least fun.  But if you are skillful with Steps 1-3, not much sanding is required.

Step 5:  Texture coat – I will use an "orange peel" pattern. You can buy this texture in spray cans, but it is quite expensive.  I will ultimately need so much texture for the tea room and new dining room ceiling that I hope to figure out how to spray an orange-peel pattern with my air compressor.

Step 6:  Painting – Boring!



The view from the tea room:  no more opening – and hopefully, less dust on the office computer.

 



New toy: A shiny gold plumb bob

Thursday, June 2:

Having sketched lines on the floor where the new bridge wall will go, I needed to cut into the ceiling drywall where the top of the wall will connect to the attic floor structure.   What better excuse to go out and buy a shiny, new, gold plumb bob at Home Depot?



The red lines on the floor indicate where the wall will go. I dangled this gold plumb bob to find the spot on the ceiling that is directly above this floor point.





The plumb bob allowed me to draw these lines on the ceiling directly above the floor markings. I don't need perfect accuracy until I actually put the new wall up.

After chalking lines across the ceiling, I cut this channel out with my little Makita saw.

I am getting more skilled at removing drywall: I've begun using a fat wood chisel and hammer to make relatively clean cuts in the tight inside-corners where the saw won't quite reach.

The top of the new wall will tie into the bottom edges of the attic trusses.

I spent the rest of the morning ripping off drywall and pulling out nails that held it.

For all the work I need to do on this wall that adjoins the office, there was no point trying to preserve much of the drywall. It will be easier just to cover it all up with new drywall once I am done.

•  I need to put studs in the opening (where the plastic is). 
•  The wall will get an electrical outlet on the new, required AFCI circuit.
• On the same new circuit, I need to run a wire up this wall and through the attic for a carbon-monoxide detector that is required on the ceiling of the new room.
• On the right end, I need to frame one of the two small closets that will make this "Tea Room" count as an actual bedroom for resale value.

A new phase: starting on the interior wall

Tuesday, May 31:

With the outside finished (except for stucco mesh and stucco), it is time to focus on the large interior wall that will run along the edge of the bridge.

The "bridge wall" will need a slight angle on the corner so that it matches the angled wall on the opposite side of the master-bedroom doors (above-right).  To determine the exact geometry, I used three tape measures.

The red lines indicate where the wall plates will go.

There will be a small closet on each side of the French door unit. I removed the drywall floor-to-ceiling, above, where the left closet will tie into the existing wall.  At right, more mess to clean up!

The electrical wire that you see in this wall connects a downstairs switch with the old chandelier mount on the vaulted ceiling. I intend to cut this wire and run it into two junction boxes that will be accessible inside the closet.   Then, the downstairs switch can control the chandelier on the new dining room ceiling below.    And I will add a bedroom switch for a ceiling light.

Below are diagrams of this wiring plan:

Here's how it currently looks from the posh living room. Most of the wiring for the new upstairs room will be done through the floor joists above the dining-room ceiling. 

Outside, you can see some of the boards that are holding up the scaffold that I built to install the new upstairs window.   The scaffold will remain until I stucco the outside. But I can't do that until I pass a rough-framing inspection. 

The wall that I have just begun work on will run across the top where the old bridge railing was. The 5-foot french door unit will be in the center.