Playhouse South Wall Almost Done

Today's photo doesn't look much different from my last playhouse post, but if you look carefully, you'll see that I cut and positioned the framing for supporting the four windows.  I also screwed in the four window headers and supporting elements.  I just need to screw in the window support pieces, and the south wall will be done!  Also, earlier this week I got confirmation from Uncle Ed, our family friend and civil engineer, that making the headers from 4x6's is okay!  So after tomorrow, I will be ready to raise up all the walls!

Playhouse South Wall Continued

I spent five to six hours working on the south wall, but I moved slowly.  Maybe I feel a little paranoid about whether the 4x6's will work and I am dreading the prospect of having to undo any of my framing.  Maybe I'm just burned out from all this framing work.  I hope once the wall framing goes up, it will boost my motivation.  So since I moved slowly, I don't feel I got as much done as I wanted.  Here is a photo of my progress.  I got the door framing done, and I cut up the wood pieces necessary for holding all four window headers.  I still need to screw the pieces together and make the portions of the wall that support the four windows.

Playhouse South Wall

I am about half way through framing the south wall.  I showed my progress to my neighbor.  He asked me a few questions, which got me second guessing my use of 4x6 blocks as my window and door headers.  The city  did not require any construction details for the building permit, and I guess that's because they consider the playhouse to be just a "utility building."  I just had to tell them how big it will be, where I will put it, and get consent from my neighbors.  So technically my use of 4x6's as headers is legal, but I wonder if they will be strong enough.

Playhouse West and North Wall Plans

This north wall is kicking my butt!  I'm still not done with the framing yet.  I still need to fasten some more pieces, and my excuse is that I ran out of screws!  Had I been better organized, I would have gotten more screws before running out.  To help me be better organized for my next run to Home Depot for building materials, I made these revised drawings for the south and west walls.  I added two more studs to support the big 4x6 over the doorway in the west wall, and I widened the top windows to 30" in the south wall.

Playhouse North Wall Continued ...

This north wall is taking me a long time.  I though I at least had the all the pieces cut and I would just need to screw them in when I took this photo below.

Now I realize my on-the-fly-design for the height of one window will not work.  It needs to be almost 2 inches higher than I have it now, which means I have to cut a lot of pieces over again.  Doh!  Here's the Rev 4 drawing for the north wall that documents the correct window heights and my other on-the-fly changes.

Playhouse North Wall

I'm finally moving on to building the north wall of the playhouse!  I've been debating how to manage the assembly of the four walls and when to raise them up.  I decided to move the east wall frame off of the foundation, and I parked it leaning against the side of our house because we have limited floor space.

Now I am building the north wall frame on the foundation.

Then I will build the south wall foundation.  But where should I do that?  If I build the north wall on the floor, it will be hard to install screws around the edges of the frame.  So I might just build the south wall on top of the finished north wall while it is still lying flat on the foundation!  I think that should work.