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melev

Planing lumber and a new better furr-down

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by
melev
, 11-24-2010 at 02:47 AM (10522 Views)
Today, I had to deal with a strangely warped pair of studs the altered the structure of the kitchen wall. It wasn't apparent until I installed the new studs, and even then I was left scratching my head because it just didn't seem possible. These studs were so rounded that I figured they had to be rejects or over-sized. However, the tape measure indicated they were 3.5" wide at various points, and the board was curved significantly. More than 1" actually.

You can see how the wall's curvature affected how the sheetrock hangs behind my cabinets in these next two pictures. The sheetrock sits on top of the stud at the top and the bottom, but the center is sucked in enough that it's going to be a pain to make this area match up to the new sheetrock I'm going to place next to it.





Crazy, right? I thought about ripping out those two studs and replacing them, but since they are holding up part of the cabinets, some electrical, and who knows what else, I decided to leave it be. Well, sort of. From the fishroom side of things, those studs were still problematic.







I really didn't want a vertical hump in that wall, so I ran up to Lowes and bought a new blade for my reciprocating saw. $3 later, I was ready for action.



It took about 20 minutes or so to slice off the bulk of the problem. Then I pulled out my old planer and shaved off more wood to smooth out what was a pretty rough cut.



Those two red studs aren't so red any more. The sheetrock will still bow slightly, but it's acceptable at this point.







I was ready to hang some sheetrock on that area, but the drill's battery was dead; instead I did a little tear out of the old sheetrock over the aquarium to make room for the new.



To keep the scale of the tank aesthetically pleasing, I decided that some sheetrock was going to be necessary over the tank. Currently, the look is 42" of stand, 27" of glass, and 20" of upper cabinetry, with 8" of visible sheetrock above it. The little furr down wasn't tough to install, although I had to be very careful around the aquarium with my heavy framing gun. I didn't want to bump or scratch the tank, nor drop anything on or in it!







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Comments

  1. TBDuval's Avatar
    Marc,
    Am I missing something? You removed the door from the kitchen to the fishroom? Are you going to have inside access to the fishroom?
  2. Midnight's Avatar
    I think he has a door where the old closet was, or beside it
  3. melev's Avatar
    The door to the left of the overflow in this picture is my new entry into the fishroom.
  4. NightShade's Avatar
    Llooking good , I would suspect the studs were wet at some point in time or some high humidity got to them to cause a bow. Anyway nice to see it coming along.
  5. michika's Avatar
    Are you going to go with a different style of cabinetry, or are you going to try and do something like you did last time?
  6. melev's Avatar
    This time will be different, Catherine. I'm contacting www.richinscarpentry.com for a bid later today. I want a sleek modular / european look, no trim or crown molding, no shelves.. just smooth cherrywood sectionals.

    The furr down is going to be 10" tall including the sheetrock layer on the underside. That gives me about 18" of space between the top of the tank and the sheetrocked wall above, which I believe will make access superior to the last tank. I didn't like how tight it was with 12" last time.
  7. D_K_P's Avatar
    Hey Marc,

    I been following your sites for a while now, they helped me a lot over the years. I noticed you only toe nailed the "L shaped" piece of framing above the tank, not going to use any "metal strapping or connectors"? I would figure the corner would be the weakest point, thus using some type of SIMPSON connector to reinforce from long term settling.

    Just my 2 cents, here in California we get a lot of ground movement so reinforcing is always a good thing!

    Looking forward to seeing the final result.

    D.K.
    Updated 11-24-2010 at 03:39 PM by D_K_P
  8. michika's Avatar
    I'm always curious about people's cabinetry choices for their tanks. I think that something like what you've described will look really good. Are you going to just go with the straight cherrywood and a varnish finish, or are you going to stain it?
  9. melev's Avatar
    Since it is merely for looks and to hold up a tiny bit of sheetrock, I decided not to use any metal straps. I looked at the various ones though, but there's nothing that would strain this particular spot.
  10. marks69's Avatar
    next time you have a warped stud cut 1/2 of the way through on the high side. then use a spike to nail it together to straighten. then just sister it up with another one.
    nice work though
  11. Wes's Avatar
    now thats what i call progress! very nice sir! Emailing ya some pics of cabinetry i think you will like...