Modern Farmhouse Framing – Raising the Walls

Thanks for joining us on our modern farmhouse framing post.  This is a DIY home building project that we have in progress.  Jim drew the plans and we all contribute to the design choices.  The house is located in the Austin Lake Estates neighborhood in Austin.  We enjoy visiting with our clients about their projects and sharing and learning from them.

After the walls are framed on the slab, the carpenters raise up the constructed walls.

Adding a perpendicular wall helps to stabilize the first wall.  Doubling the top plate ties the wall sections together.

The roof and floor trusses are in.  Ours were purchased from Textruss in Austin.  This is a big moment, since it is scary to lift them up.  They need to be handled carefully so their structural integrity is not damaged.  And they need to be perfectly aligned because our standing seam metal roof will require a very flat surface.

Here is a look at the structure.  The living areas are filled with temporary diagonal braces added during the process of “plumbing and aligning the walls”.  The trusses are all tied together and carefully braced also.  The 4 x 8 sheets of roof decking will add further structural integrity to the roof.  We added 2 feet of “heel” at the sides of the trusses, making them pentagonal instead of triangular.  This allows maximum insulation thickness all the way to the exterior walls and gives a more impressive apparent wall height.  We were also able to get a walkable “attic space” down the center of the trusses.  This space is 8 feet wide and over 5 feet tall.

This shows the 3/4 inch thick exterior sheathing, which adds stability to the structure. The thicker than normal sheathing provides a nail base for siding and trim nails.

Hardie Board 16 inch wide soffit material is used as vertical siding, with Hardie trim used to make battens.  Jim was very particular about the layout of the battens, and drove the carpenters nuts.  Our battens are in perfect order.  The window groupings and door openings were designed to center within the batten pattern.

Thanks for joining our Modern Farmhouse framing post!  We hope you will stay tuned for more updates as this house goes up.

We are full time Realtors, and just do a DIY project once in awhile.  If you need someone who knows Austin real estate and knows construction to help you find the right home, give us a call:  512-789-4563

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