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Posted by shiver on November 24, 2007, 9:34 am
>
>> I'm going to frame a knee wall in the kitchen.
>>
>> Do I need to remove the flooring and attach the plate to the
>> subfloor?
>>
>> Do I need to remove the lathe and plaster on the adjacent wall and
>> attach the new wall directly to the studs?
>>
>> What's the best practice? I am assuming that it's okay to leave the
>> flooring and drywall in place, but it's probably better practice to
>> remove them.
>>
>> The existing flooring is just a quarter inch of masonite with vinyl
>> tiles on top.
>>
>> Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.
>
> If it were me, I'd make every effort to make it as secure as possible.
> You don't give much info on what is on each side of the wall, but
> just saying "kitchen" means an area of pretty high use.
Good point!
> For the adjacent wall, if you have it open to the point you can get a
> good nailer in between two studs, I'd go for it. I assume since you
> say adjacent 'wall' and not 'walls' the other end of your new wall
> will be an opening of walkway, meaning it will be free standing at
> that end. That means the end against the adjacent wall will be the
> only firmly attached point above the floor.
This was the conclusion I eventually came to...I'm going to attach it to
the studs because I have to install the nailers anyway.
> As for the floor - as long as you can get thru the finished flooring
> to get the bottom plate firmly attached, you'll probably be ok. But
> thinking down the road, will you ever want to pull this old floor and
> masonite? If so, you will need to figure a way to cut it at the new
> wall. Might be better to do a little more work now and save a lot
> later. Mark the area where the bottom plate will be and use a
> circular saw with the blade set to the thickness of the part you want
> to remove and cut the strip of flooring out.
I'm planning on selling pretty soon anyway, but I don't want to screw the
future owner. You're right, I'll cut a strip out and put it on the
subfloor.
> Is one end going to be free-standing? It's sometimes difficult to get
> a good solid wall just nailing or screwing into the subflooring. If
> you are only going to be sitting on the floor, you might want to use
> something more than nails to attach the studs to the bottom plate to
> ensure they are firmly attached. Even with finished drywall on the
> knee-wall, someone leaning or bumping into the wall could make it
> begin to wobble eventually.
It's a "penninsula" wall, L-shaped, so I figured it would not be subject
to wobbling because of the shape. Going through to the joists underneath
would be trivial because it's an open basement, so perhaps I'll do that
too.
> Not knowing what is below you floor, it's hard to offer much advice,
> but if it is an unfinished basement, you could cut a whole large
> enough for the double studs at that end of the wall to extend below
> the subfloor where you could bolt them to the floor joist or nailers
> fastened between two joists.
>
> Bottom line, the better you attach everything, the better your wall
> will be, the longer it will last, and the happier you will be!
Agreed.
Thanks for your insight.
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