With pre-built trusses, roughing in a roof is pretty easy. You will need some ladders and some help since the trusses are heavy and big. The first thing is to rack the trusses at one end of the garage upside down resting on the top plates. See the sketch below to see what I mean. This makes it alot easier to work with since as the roof trusses go in, it gets tougher to fit them trough the opening in the roof. Also, you can stay up on the top plate and install the trusses without having to climb back down. Read the rest of this entry »

With the four walls all framed, it is time to sheath the outside. Since you took so much care in making the studs regularly spaced the sheathing should fly by. You will want to swap out the 16D nails in the nailer for 8D nails at this point. Exterior grade OSB has an inner and outer side. This makes more of a difference when roofing as the outer side is textured to improve traction when walking on it. However, the other feature of the outer side is a painted grid of 16″ and 24″ spaced lines to allow you to hit the studs underneath when nailing. Make sure this side is out and you will save yourself some headaches. Read the rest of this entry »

With the other three walls framed, you will want to tackle the big overhead door opening. Since most of this wall is empty space, it is easier to build two little walls on each side with the jack studs for the main beam and then lift the overhead door header into place. You can nail the top plate in place across the king studs before lifting the main beam in order to add some rigidity to the walls before hefting the big beam. The sequence of sketches below give an idea of one way to do this. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the basics of framing are understood, take a look at the sample diagrams for my framing. I have labeled all the four walls with their directions which correspond to the north given in my site plan. You should be able to generate a similar plan for framing up your walls. The letters on the sides indicate the wall that meets up at that end (N, E, S, W) and help match the walls with the correct direction Read the rest of this entry »