Things that make you feel like a idiot...

So while Amy was out gallivanting around with her friends on Wednesday night, I took it upon myself to do some of the bracing in the stud walls for the bathroom. This involved little more than measuring the gap between the studs (which was fairly irregular because of all the corners, and actually not because we can't measure out 16" on centre), cutting a piece of 2x4 to length, and screwing it into place.

I gathered up all the necessary tools, got the chop saw set up and plugged in, put my tool belt on, and gathered up a whole whack of 2x4 bits that were left over from building the wall in the first place. I filled the little pocket of the tool belt with screws, put a fresh battery in the drill and set to work.

Which is right about when the stupidity started.

I cut the first piece a little short, but set it aside to use later. I cut a second piece too long, promptly trimmed it too short, and then set it aside to use later. I then cut a third piece, and it fit in quite nicely: not too tight, not too loose. (No, this isn't a reworking of the three bears; I'll do my best to explain this, just bear with me.) The problem really started when I tried to screw it in to the studs.

For some reason (because I'm an idiot), I was trying to attach the braces by toe-nailing (or toe-screwing, as the case may be) through the face of the brace (the thin side of the 2x4) and into the stud. This involved starting the screw perpendicular to the brace, getting it to bite the wood (but not TOO much), then turning the screw on a sharp angle and driving it through. I needed a third hand to hold the brace steady while conducting all these operations and couldn't for the life of me figure out why this was so hard.

Eventually, I rigged up a system where I would start the screws into the brace while it was still on the floor, and then use a piece of scrap wood to hold the back side of the brace square with the stud while I drove the rest of the screw through. I would then go around the wall and do the same with the other side. Once the brace was held on both ends, I would do the other two screws and move on to the next one.

Well, as you can imagine, this method worked to a degree, but not without a lot of false starts, stripped screws, and colourful language. But I persevered, and only had three braces left, when the sheer idiocy of my approach hit me. (Those of you who have done framing before have already spotted the flaw in my plan.)

You see, when you put a stud into a wall, you have to toenail the top and bottom of the stud because you don't have access to the other side of the footer and header (being already attached to the floor and ceiling). When you're doing the braces, however, you don't have that problem: you can drill straight through from one side of the stud and into the brace.

 

Needless to say, the last three braces went a lot faster...


Lesson learned: let Amy do the goddamn framing. I'm going out for beers.