DIY How to Frame Your Basement A to Z

welcome to home renovation YouTube channel that's dedicated to helping homeowners do DIY renovations and get professional results today we are talking about framing your basement so we're going to be going through all the steps and techniques that you're gonna need this basement is half finished but we're going to show you how to take it from here to something fabulous [Music] all right so here we are in the basement we're gonna do a little bit of interior framing I'm gonna show you some basic techniques so that you can do it at home without running into trouble so there's just a couple of things you need to know really it's not that tricky but if you don't do it right you're in for a lot of aggravation first thing you want to do is measure off your space okay you really want to get the height up into the bottom of your floor joists and it's 93 and 1/8 I've double checked it's the same all the way alone that doesn't happen very often so okay when you're building like this the best way to do it is take the shortest measurement take about an eighth of an inch off of that and then cut all of the sticks the same height now the way you do your math is simple you're going to have a top plate and a bottom plate make sure your bottom plate is pressure-treated lumber if you're going directly on concrete and especially in a basement and then you aren't going to run into premature rot when we attach all this together the top plate and bottom plate equal three inches so take that off of your measurement in this case it's 93 and 1/8 so we cut all of our studs at 90 inches plus those makes 93 gives me a little gap to help make it easy to put it in place and then we just add a couple shims and nail it where it's supposed to go if you've been watching the channel for a while you'll know that I love my laser and here's why because that laser is on a stand it gives me a line on the ground up the wall and across the ceiling it shows me everywhere that this framing is going to start so when I get my laser put in place instead of leaving the laser on the entire time that I'm working just pull out my black marker and when I can find it hey max where's my marker and I'm just gonna put a reference mark I'm gonna draw that line now it's not very easy to see because max has got some fabulous lighting in here to help everybody out Wow here it is okay and we're gonna mark the ceiling now what this is gonna represent is the outside of the frame not the inside very important to know what you're marking and we'll just put a couple of reference points up here all right here we go now I got a few marks on the ceiling in the floor all you have to do now is assemble it and the way you want to do that it's kind of like reading go left to right okay we're going up against an existing framework here so because our building materials are 16 inch on the center we're going to start with a stud all right and realize that an 8 foot long board to go 16 inch on center means at the end of that board your last board needs to be right down the middle on that frame not finishing it flush and I'll show you why so here we go 32 now if you have a tape measure like mine you'll have little red squares that will match up with everything that you are doing there we go see that there's our eight-foot wall finishes on there now what we do is we just translate this information okay and then we put an X on the right side and that represents where my studs gonna go now we're ready to go now I am going to set this up so that my top starts here and I can lift this into place I have enough clearance and I would just pull the floor with me if I do the other way I've got some ductwork and stuff in the way if I try lifting it up I'm probably gonna get caught on this so we'll do this we pick up the plate all right and just put it to the other end don't turn the board around well are you gonna frame everything crooked oh we got to do just put them roughly where they go and then start nailing it all together now if you're gonna be framing your basement you might want to pick up a gun something like this this is a clipped head framing nailer was a three and a quarter inch nails this one's at 34 degrees it's very common most of the guns are the same angle the idea is it sets the nail in straight and keeps all the hardware away from where you're working so this one's on a compressor which is the most affordable option all right this gun is 150 compressors 100 bucks it's a pretty affordable way to build something in a quick hurry if you want to buy the gas gun you can but you will pay closer to four or five hundred dollars for it don't forget with a gun like this this is one time where I definitely agree with all the trolls wear your safety glasses don't forget you get two nails for every 2x4 stud the rule of thumb of course is one nail for every two inches of dimensional lumber [Music] sooner or later you're gonna run into a piece of lumber that's twisted okay nail one end take your handy-dandy shark-tooth hammer which is why I love this hammer lay it on the wood and then you can twist into position a little bit past where you need it throw a couple of nails in and that'll keep the stick straight and you won't have any problems with it warping ever again now it's done let's get these up so I can see what I'm doing now just gonna pull this into position here's a little warning for you if you have tile floor above the area where you're building take an extra quarter inch off your frame size so you don't have to jam it in you want to just place it in have a nice gap use 3-inch screws to screw it all together with shims because the flooring up here is actually it's a laminate floor or carpet I'm not worried about that so I'm just gonna go get my sledgehammer it's nice because I don't get to use it very often we're not gonna go out it like crazy just gonna give it a love tap where it meets these floor joists find out where it's sticky remember when your woods on an angle is actually longer than the height because when we measure we're using a thin little tape but when you're with three and a half inches on an angle becomes a lot longer so we're lifting the floor and then it'll settle back down again now I'm just gonna make sure that we're tight up against the wall here because we might be perfectly level up and down or plumb as people try to remind me all the time but if we check here we're definitely out a little bit so yeah I got a little bit room both ends so we're just gonna give it a little bit of love here okay so now that it's all nice and plumb and just a couple of fasteners right into the bottom of the floor joist you don't run any mechanical through the plate into the bottom of a joist so you're never gonna run a problem with your faster being in the wrong spot okay no need to block anything no need that all kinds extra hardware that's in place now the only thing we have left to do is throw a couple of fasteners into the ground we will do that a little bit later today when I have all the rest of the walls done then I'll throw them a hearing protection because that gun is loud you saw the shed video you know what I'm talking about so the next section we're going to cover is framing your door generally speaking a standard sized door is 80 inches high now keep in mind that the door jamb that that door comes with if it's special if it's a knock-down kit it's actually 81 inches from the top to the floor they want to leave an inch gap underneath so that they can install it before all the flooring goes in that's standard construction technology doors and all that trim go in before the flooring I know I know if you're renovating you can do it the other way around but if you're gonna put all your flooring in first take into consideration the height of the flooring if you're gonna add the door jamb after because generally speaking an 80 inch door you want an 83 inch clearance before the header now this one's not 83 inches this is exactly 82 which is exactly the size of the door jamb so it's gonna be a bit of a problem for me my solution because this case the clients going with a vinyl floor directly on to the concrete I'm gonna just cut down the jams to fit all through this basement I'm just gonna take a half an inch off because all of these doors are set up exactly 82 there's no wiggle room for leveling and squaring and that's why you want 83 okay 83 inches gives you a nice gap there you don't need the top of the jamb attached to anything you just put the casing on and you're good to go the other thing you got to know is as your wall Square and plumb and that's not bad now keep in mind wood warps twists moves all these wonderful things so this is gonna be a double french door we have lovely - 24 inch full glass with a privacy's on it so this is for the office space - 24 inch doors plus a gap here plus your jams honestly this should be a 50 inch hole it's not it's exactly 48 so what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a modification to this so that we can have the door the right size and when I'm looking at this framing I'm like there's a lot going on here framing around the gas line in the vacuum we don't want to touch that corner over here it's just plain and simple so what we're gonna end up doing is I'm gonna cut this area here on a bit of an angle just to make sure that I get a nice finish all the way through my Heights not going to be affected and then I'm going to take two new studs and I'm gonna put them over here now we are not supporting any weights with this door it's just a hollow space what I am gonna do is cut a little block here so that I can attach this and lift up the middle back into position because it's sagging now and all we have to do is cut this I put those two boards in nail them together reverse the crown so that if they're warped you go like this and you screw them together nice and straight that'll keep it straight forever so your door doesn't start sticking later mmm instead of talking about it let's get it done now instead of going square like I said I'm gonna put a bit of an angle on it just to make sure that I thought of the way when I go to put my door jamb in [Music] there we go hey Dex screw ya it still works I'll keep that for later well and here's the thing like you can't use regular screw on a deck but you can use a deck screw on regular lumber so if you had an outdoor deck project you had a bunch of screws leftover that's fine to use them but that is not a three inch construction screw that is barely even touching the bottom plate there's a good possibility that a lot of this might end up twisting up over time all right you still have more screws we can't get access to I think we're just going to cut them out and there's most likely a couple of drywall screws on here one of the advantages of cutting on an angle is I can roll this this way off that drywall okay don't have to be like that and now it's time to set up our laser to make sure we get a nice plumb line we want to come right off this corner BAM okay there that's perfect now I've pre-cut my lumber I'm checking the board and it has a bit of a curve this way I'm using my hand a little exaggerating I'm gonna put an X on the outside okay and then I'm gonna check this piece for the same thing there doesn't appear to be any twists at all on this one yeah maybe a little bit this way okay now they're both relatively straight but a little bit of curve that's in them is letting us know what their intention is down the road if you put both of them together like this that have this curve okay it'll go together real easy you put it in the wall and it'll just want to keep on curving and so eventually that frame will push into the door cause your problems if you take the curves like this and then screw them together then they're gonna be fighting it against each other the whole time and the screws will hold it in place and your doors will never get sticky okay so like that I need a 89 to three-quarter inch or 200 and Wow 228 centimeters I think I read that right for all of our European friends I'm learning real quick I'll show you a little trick I love doing this because in this situation we're in her basement we're renovating we don't have a lot of electrical down here it still has to be all wired up later this afternoon so all I have is two plugs one for the compressor one for the lights and this goes up so it's easier to move this around the basement as I'm working than to have my chop saw set up and trying to run continuous power to it basically what we're doing here is we're setting our guide my mark bringing the speed square up to the plate and I'm gonna hold the square in place and then this provides me something to run the song against so I get a straight cut now make sure you don't cut your legs off like an idiot but if you're holding this right and you're pushing straight and you have a sharp blade it'll never bind it'll never kick back if you're finding this you're fighting with your saw it's time for a new blade invest in it because that is when an action is gonna happen and if you're not comfortable this set the chop saw both side and run up and down the stairs 300 times that's pretty damn exact didn't it mm-hmm so I'm a bit old school and I still appreciate the idea of using screws just slam my doors for the amount of times that the designs will change the plans will change they'll come down a bit like oh you know what we really like the door but can we make it this big instead it's a lot easier if all the rework you've done here is screwed in because you're gonna always unscrew it and then you're not cutting lumber and throwing it in the garbage so if you're not exactly 100 percent sure you're gonna be happy with a finished project use the screw now the way we do this is to make sure your flesh attaching it to the plate first and then come through the face into the existing framing to tie everything together so you don't get cracks and drywall down the road okay then because our laser is in perfect position we are going to make sure that this front edge it's exactly where we want it I'm gonna move that right where we want it now before I bury the head make sure you're good here you got a bit of an overhang remember when you're on an angle it'll drive this wood forward so I'm just gonna drive for it but I'm going to check here make sure that that gap closes done and then I'm gonna come from the other side here and it pulled it square I'm going to throw in another screen now just to make sure that it doesn't want to twist over time yeah wow that's really perfect now that's in position the secret here is to make sure that it's not going to twist you have to double tap it together every two feet [Music] side by side for ibly with a fresh battery today I'm using 6 so 2 4 6 feet and I've screwed the top eraser by tightening all this together it's not gonna warp overtime no no it's just a matter okay the only thing left is to cut out the bottom plate now you can see here this plate has been fastened to the concrete with these and Hills here explosive hammer so I'm just gonna trim this back perfect now that the door is done we've got another little project here we're closing up under the stairs and one of the things you're gonna find is that around staircases nobody is really giving to concerns over plumb square all that kind of business right but what we want is when we have our finished space what I'm finishing on the inside I want to look at so this is gonna look stupid on this side of the room but that's okay I'm gonna just pretend I'm gonna try to create a flat wall here right okay so that makes that somewhat straight somewhat flush which should be somewhat square the outside corner is a disaster basically I just created this filler this is a little bit smaller than the hole because I'm screwing it all together so I'm not concerned about it fitting exactly perfect it can be frustrating when you're attaching things the things that aren't square and plumb so when in doubt leave yourself a little bit of room and then you can just go ahead and screw it all together one of the benefits is these outside boards can bow to fill the space it's not going to hurt the goal is to make sure that when I put my finished wall board on its attached to something that's not moving it doesn't have to be perfectly straight so if it has a warp that's fine as long as it's screwed together that's why I use the screws because then it's not going to be pulling off the wall and breaking the joint later okay so it's time put your bottom plates together so you can see then when you angle your screw going from this corner it'll go down and hit right about the middle of that plate on the other side that is the perfect location okay you drive your screws like that there we go now this little project here's gonna need a little bit of back framing we're gonna have to add a piece of lumber here build something for this corner we're gonna be closing off the ceiling at this height because this was coming across so we'll put a block here and a block over here it's called back framing little sticks here and there to carry the other side of a drywall when you're doing that it's all about making sure that the drywall joints don't come loose so back framing isn't necessary to be screwed together it gives you a surface attach or drywall and then framing is done so as long as every corner has somewhere to attach drywall on both sides you're good to go okay so we put this wall up a couple days ago and it had electricians come in and we needed this wall because there was gonna be a plug here the rest of this piece of walls section we built separately and I installed the yesterday while the electricians were working and it's just here and basically what we did is we just measured the gap on the floor the gap on the ceiling made my top and bottom plates built it stuck it in added this brace here and this is important this brace is added so that the middle of the wall is also tied to this wall and that'll keep these things from moving independently and causing cracks in the drywall the only thing that's left here to do is a little back framing and that's part of the drywall process just before we go do drywall if we walk around with a bunch of 1 by fours and we tie things in like that just to have a screw surface for the drywall but we can do with that while we're getting our waiting for our drywall delivery tomorrow today we are going to attach our plate that's the last thing they do so the ceiling is already screwed in place this wall was wedged in place pretty good but we have our marks on the ground to make sure that everything is still level and square from the laser line and now we're just going to attach to the concrete for good measure and it's important you don't get lazy with this even though this wall is wedged in you might find that over time things can change with the way the foundation settles and things will move around we have concrete posts and those are sitting on little two by two foot boxes of concrete underneath the concrete floor so there can be variations in where things settle over time and this might end up not being as compact as you think so it's important to get that concrete nailed together with the wood before we move any further now you can use the tap cons get your drill out and drill a hole and attach it but the reality is this isn't none of this is structural okay when you're framing in a basement remember that all the structural work is already finished the only thing we're doing is building interior walls and the goal of an interior wall is really two things one is to provide us an opportunity so that we have something to drill through to move our our electrical plumbing mechanical and give us something to attach our drywall to so the only thing it has to do is stay in place all right that's easily achieved with some adhesives some screws and a couple of impact nails and what this does is this drives down it's a three inch nail goes through the one-and-a-half inch plate into the concrete and even if it isn't completely buried it's stuck in the concrete so the wall can't move it back and forth really the goal here is system a fix it in place and then you walk away so you don't have to go overboard here just kind of drive a few in place to keep things nice and still for the long haul now here's my new ramp set this is awesome it's trigger action one shot so you have to have a pellet and these little ramp sets they come in different strengths and they're color-coded so yellow is number four this is ideal for concrete if you wanted to go with the number five for steel you can and we just put that shot in there right but we always put the nail in first you don't want to be working with this and accidentally hit the trigger so put your nail in put it where you want to put it in the concrete then add the shot okay and then we just set it down and then you lock it in position just a little bit more pull the trigger BAM 22-caliber action ladies and gentlemen gets the job done every time fire in the hole this is an interior separation wall and it is on concrete and under steel now we did a video and another basement project man must be year and a half ago now we showed you how to attach a plate like this into steel and we used a pre-drill and then a steel screw system and that works great but it's not always necessary so there is another way to do this and we're going to show you because this new Remington impact driver that I have would work awesome in this situation so we're gonna show you a couple of different options for attaching this to the steel and of course we're gonna nail on the plate now most important thing here is the steel isn't going to move so we're going to use that as our straight line so we might as well attach the ceiling first but we want to make sure that the bottom plate is in position before we get too crazy here so if we're going to assume that the top is where it needs to be I'm gonna look at this bubble here and I'm gonna play around nope yep the bottom definitely has to go in so I'm gonna just make this adjustment here until I'm happy nice and by putting the level on the steel and then pushing the 1 into it and making that nice full contact you know these 6-foot levels they're really coming to any brilliant everybody should get something this long I think it's just a little over a hundred bucks but if you're framing anything that you're concerned being plumb this is the way to go now the order that we do this of course now that we have this level and we know exactly where our level position is on the top just because it's flush with the steel I'm gonna throw in a quick little mark love these markers for this anything happens while you're working you don't have to go back to leveling process again just bring yourself back to the black line we're gonna get a couple of fasteners in here and then I'm gonna show you how to test the top I'm just a quick word of warning if you're a DIY or and you have travel plans make sure if you're using that gun you have a really good shower before you try getting through and because if you get so randomly selected for a gunshot-residue test you will fail and they will have some interesting conversations with you in the back room all by yourself I know that might sound crazy but don't wear the same shoes you travel with either because those sniffer dogs they'll pick that up off your shoes man they will not be happy to find you top plates this is awesome I love top plates remember nothing here is structural the steel is that's the only thing that's not going anywhere so what we're gonna do is attach to the steel and I have a great system for doing that and it's gonna offend some people okay because it's so good you're gonna go why didn't I think of that all right construction adhesive this is awesome this stuff sticks to everything and every weather and every kind of temperature and oh we're gonna do here folks its load that up with the adhesive and shove em right in the middle of it oh yeah boom boom boom see how that gets coated up now if it's a really big hole just put a little bit more on your shim and we're just laminating and gluing these things together and it's gonna get a little bit messy that's fine oh okay now I just want to make sure it's nice and flush leave it to dry until tomorrow okay come back take your knife trim it all off boom you're done or if you really enjoy using your hammer we can still go into the steel what this will do is this will anchor everything in place all right now this particular gun works great upside down because it's a trigger action there is one secret though so you don't have a backfire you want to put that in there close the compartment okay put it up into place and keep the pressure on it all right that way your pellet won't fall out whoo do not expect your nail to go bury in there it is in the steel probably like 1/8 of an inch but it's enough to keep this thing from moving around now that way you aren't going to have an accident while you're working for the rest of the day come back in the morning and find this all glued together a half an inch out of place perfect every time all right so one of the most difficult things you're gonna run into as a homeowner if you're doing your own basement is how to tie in your room terior walls to the exterior walls especially when you are underneath the beam because in most cases the way they frame the house is they frame up to the beam and that's it and you'll see down here there's no plate this is one wall section there's where the beam is that's another wall section it's very typical you don't see two out from where guys will actually frame this around the beam on the floor and then lift it up into place usually because the furnace is already going to be there all right it's just a matter of order of things so when you go to frame this you need to have some blocking here so this wall actually has something to attach to when you get to the other side now in our situation I've got a drain line here and I'm gonna have to redirect it back into the mechanical room drill a new hole in the foundation to get the drip from all the condensation issue underneath the floor so that's fine so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go cut the vapor barrier right on the wood okay important this is an important step don't cut it beside the wood it's hard to get a good tape joint afterwards if you can't press on that tape the tape works really good but only if you can get compression all right so let me take that we're gonna cut it crash okay now we can pull our plastic out of the way have a nice little overlap there we don't need that because one layer is enough we're gonna take our block that we cut for this we're gonna put a nice and flush and then we're gonna screw it in okay all right so resist the temptation to come on the sides here this is a small piece of wood really just want to push your way back in here getting behind the plastic if you can right now you only need one screw on each side okay you don't need a bunch here resist the temptation to use way too much hardware in a small space okay seems to be human nature for some reason okay there we go that was blocked in now we're gonna do another one down here because we want to be able to hold the wallet two locations at least I like three top middle and bottom coming across same thing even if this wall meets right on this stud you're gonna want to cut the plastic open and add another piece of stud this way okay because when this is closes up you need a drywall surface so no matter which way you're attaching your outside your interior walls to your exterior you either gonna block like this or you got to create an L in the frame to receive a wall so that you can hang your drywall so having this understanding it's paramount to a good installation remember wherever you puncture a vapor barrier you need to seal it back up again or it's no longer barrier here we go done now all we got to do is put a piece of wood from the flesh of the top of this plate alright and level it off at the bottom and screw it together piece of cake now let's recap basic home interior renovation if you're building a basement and you have no walls at all on the exterior either you might be one of the lucky few that have an insulation blanket which is allowed in some districts for a certain period of time by the code so new home builders got lazy and just put a blanket wrap insulation up against the outside wall no framing if you're gonna frame a wall remember the basics if you're going on concrete you need a bare minimum a pressure treated plate for the bottom if you're not gonna use pressure treated lumber then you've got to have a sill gasket of some sort whether it's a the fiberglass pink thing that comes in the roll or a black plastic or vapor barrier all three of those are acceptable so ask your building store which one was good for you you're framing should be 16 inch on center or 24 inch on center no other dimension is going to work well for you because the insulation only comes in 16 and 24 so always build according to the next material are going to use if you're going to feet on center or six these your drywall will install properly your insulation will install properly and everything go well for you so just keep it simple and remember on really long walls just think drywall the longest you can get is 12 feet but they come in two foot increments mostly so make sure that you're going to have somewhere where the drywall can join up and if you want to cheat and you want to put a stud up against another stud where the joint will be that's fine but screw those together don't rely on nails or that joint will crack okay whew I think that covers all the basics if you have any extra questions put them in the comments section below and then everybody can get into the conversation and we can all learn together about how to solve all of our problems when it comes to framing your basement so if you're renovating your basement guaranteed you're going to need to know how to build a bulkhead because every home that I've ever been in that has a basement has a heating and cooling system so you need to know how to build a box around this because it's not as easy as you think and yet it's so simple I see it all the time people building elaborate structures to get drywall to cover around here so what I want you to understand is we're installing drywall the only thing that you need to do is be able to hold it in place so that it's not moving so you don't get cracks and though you can paint it that's it the only function is to close things up now since you can hang a whole sheet of drywall on one screw I wouldn't need you to just take a step back from the idea of making something elaborate with wood and try to simplify the process a sheet of drywall that's four feet wide which is usually enough to cover most bulkheads yep four feet wide in this particular case we're going out wider we're gonna go to five feet because we want to encase the gas line here as well but four feet wide is typical you need something to hold weight on each end and something up the middle you can install ceilings with two feet on Center structure that's not a problem and if your gap is getting really big then just switch your drywall from regular half-inch to 5/8 because that is a fiberglass reinforced drywall and it is so rigid you can span 36 inches with that without it anything attached it won't be a problem now in order to get this up here I've developed the system first of all we have a steel beam so let's talk about that what we do is we just use a construction adhesive and we put lumber in their bottom and on the front bottom and on the front and we glue it all in place here we go okay so we have two pieces of wood we glue it in place and then we can then take another piece of wood and screw it to this the next day so before I go home tonight I'm gonna actually glue all my wood in and you can do this another way to the lot of these times these steel beams the interior dimension of that steel beam is exactly the same as dimensional lumber so you can actually stick a two by eight in here as well but if you want to be a little bit cheap and just put a few blocks here and then eight or ten feet down the road put a couple more blocks glue it let it sit overnight and then you can screw whatever lumber you want nice and level get your laser out and make sure it's all perfect that's a great way to deal with steel beams the next thing is in between the beams so in between the beam I like to build it exactly the same as beside the beam and this is my system that I've developed and it works like a charm I go to Home Depot I buy some 7/16 chipboard it's just exterior Aspen it-- it's nice and cheap and I screw two by twos to it all right and the way I do it is I offset at three inches that way I can attach them like a Tetris puzzle build really long boxes and screw it all together now what you want to do is you want to go something normal like in this situation our dimension is actually nine and a half inches is the drop in the ceiling which is perfect because if you go to home depot and you get them to do it on the saw there you can have them rip nine and a half inches off the bottom the sheet over and over and over again and it comes out to perfect pieces at nine and a half inches I know it sounds crazy but nine and a half times whatever times is the perfect 48 inch sheet and you get to use all the wood and it is a perfect bulkhead so even if you don't need the whole nine and a half sometimes it's just easier to just cut it at nine and a half it's a number that sticks in your head and it will work in every bulkhead situation once you've screwed this together your two by two which is usually a little wonky will be nice and straight okay you just have to make sure that the warp that's in that board is working against the plywood because this piece Aspen 8 will straighten up any board if you put enough screws in it once you've got a bunch of these made then it's just time to install them now the best part of this system is when you're putting you something in between the ductwork it's not rocket science it's not measuring it's just getting it in the middle try not to install it over top of these little brackets and screws it creates an uneven surface so you want to get flush to the wood keep the wires to one side or another if you're putting in flat lights and all you do is lift it into place roughly because we're just carrying a little extra load so here's my system because this is 7/16 it's not that heavy and you can do this alone okay make sure there's room for everything get it off the screws for the ducting there you go one screw will hold all the weight you got time to come down here and inspect and just make sure it's what you want ok there we go now I know this is crazy but two screws is enough those two screws are gonna carry 160 pounds you'd have to put six layers of drywall here before you're gonna have that kind of weight so don't worry about it two dots all you do now is take another two by two screws at the bottom and the reason I left it like that to begin with this so that I can get up there and see what I'm doing it's not a lot of space so get another two by two and just use some coarse thread drywall screws screw it to the bottom now you got a hanging surface for your drywall one of the reason this works so well just because the house us today I've got engineered floor joists so you don't have to worry about the crown of a floor joist up and down and uneven it's usually really really flat so you can trust that the surface I'm screwing to is already level and flat so if we're working off the floor joists or the steel it's all the same thing because the steel determines how flat the floor is gonna be and the engineered floor joists keep it that way so everything we attach if we pre make it cut it and drill it screw it together we can just install it that quick and simple it's like working with Lego so we're gonna install our wood into our floor joist package like I said one adhesive on two sides of each block okay hmm carefully put this in so we can get away on the skate just press it in and then just press this in there that's ready to roll so one of the most important parts of a basement renovation from a professional standpoint and getting a professional result is in your bulkhead and how straight your line is all right at the end of the day people come downstairs and they will judge with their eyes how perfectly square and level and straight everything is and they'll decide if you've done a good job or not before they even walk through the room so it's very important especially if you're planning on selling your house of having a nice straight bulkhead line that seems not to be closing or opening up and it's parallel with the wall that's longest in the room to measure it against the way we do that of course as we use our laser now boom here's the trick where oh where does my laser go okay we have to pick a spot and then we have to make sure this is parallel to the longest wall the mechanical that's in the ceiling looks generally straight but you don't want to bet on anything okay that's not how you're gonna judge if this gas line is installed a half an inch one end out to the other it will show up when you walk in the room I don't know how even people that don't have any ability to understand construction can walk in a room and see something that's out of square it's just human thing right we all have that ability so when you have it all exposed it'll look straight but it won't be when you paint so get your laser out throw a line and the only way to do this really is to measure off the wall so what I've got is I've got a line here and I want to judge I want to go off of lumber which is flush with the steel and I want to put a mark here and I'm reading my tape it says 64 inches all right now here when I'm put that mark on that red line and put my number 64 and I'm going to check at the extreme other end here and see how I'm doing I'm gonna get you now I am 63 and a half okay so before you go touch anything else had the half an inch to the laser line make a mark now all you have to do put the tape measure put away and the marker put away let's go back to your laser and line up the two dots I'm just moving the base over on my tripod here until I have both of those lines connected together okay there we go now I have a line on my ceiling that's perfectly parallel to the other steel beam which is what that wall is built under and I know when I'm finished I'm gonna have a perfect bulkhead line now the next step here is take your black marker cover those red lines because that laser is gonna get bumping around and it's going to be in the way and you're gonna have to pull it back out again if you put your mark on your ceiling you want to have an issue now I have had a lot of people on our last bulkhead video that we did a couple years back commenting about how they why don't you use steel in the basement Jeff it's so much straighter and here's why it's a lot more work I can make all my bulkheads in about an hour pre assemble them all and then I can just stick them in use my laser level screw it all together and because I've got a line to follow my ceiling line will be perfectly straight once that ceiling line is straight the only other thing I have to worry about is whether or not my bulkhead is square to the ceiling and that's what we do we take care of that when we're putting in our drywall we don't do that now so all I have to do is Mount this and I'm ready for drywall that's simple that's why I don't use steel now depending on how you're strapping your ceiling you can either have this exposed to the finished ceiling if you're using two by fours sometimes it's necessary you've got plumbing lines and things like that you've got to get beneath but we're just going regular strapping so I'm gonna put this on the inside which is why I don't have anything attached to the bottom yet now I have a straight line and I'm gonna just hold this up against my black mark here I can put a screw there now I know some people are gonna say oh you could have been a little bit closer truth is yeah you can always fight around with one inch here and there but I like to have a bit of distance don't forget building-code gas line you need some distance behind your framing depending on the region you're in it could be up to three inches or more so here we go just set up the line throw in a couple of screws this is to say eight foot sections of bulkhead but I'm installing here and it's gonna take me less than four minutes try doing that with steel now you see on my pieces here I've got the ends offset three inches and because we're only using this to hang drywall it doesn't have to be perfect but what this is is the completion of sixteen feet of drywall bulkhead there we go I love this because I can do it alone and I can do it in less than half the time two or three guys working with steel screw those two panels together just like that and done now I'm gonna come the other end and you will see that I'm off my mark because the wood is not straight but how easy is it to just do this perfect perfect every time you can see this stuff is not straight that's fine I'm only holding up drywall I still have to put an outside corner on and do all my mud work so what I do is I take the bow in this board and I actually put the bow so it's like my bow is like this towards the wood and I'm installing you know flesh on the bottom now I'll use five screws for eight feet okay no now carry a couple hundred pounds on this side I got a couple hundred pounds on the middle a couple hundred pounds on the other side there we go so no I've got I don't know with with three supports on the ceiling I've got enough here to carry 600 pounds on these dry wall screws alone that's just ridiculous you'll never see 600 pounds okay on that ceiling the way this is finished off I love I'm gonna bring in my drywall lift I want to put a big sheet of drywall on here and I'm gonna go from the other side to this side four feet wide I'm going to screw there I'm gonna screw here and then I'm gonna come over here and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna pull up my big framing square put on the ceiling and make it absolutely perfectly dead square from the ceiling and then I'll screw it in because I'm not holding the drywall while I'm working I just lift it up with a lift and I can pull this around and manipulate it where I want it and then drive a screw in and I can do that every 16 inches as I'm going along make it perfect now you can see on the camera it's pretty good the top is perfect the bottoms got a little bit of a wave to it because it hasn't been supported yet that's why I mentioned it's important make sure you use the square get it done perfect but what you have overall is a pretty straight line because this is so flexible any of the other waves will be taken out while I put the ceiling in now if that's not good enough the way that we finished this is we're going to be putting an outside corner bead on and it is going to be paper wrapped over the middle and attached to the mud so at the end of it I'm actually gonna put way too much mud here and I'm gonna set this in where I want it and I'm going to be able to work on creating a brand-new line even again after the drywall this is gonna work out to my favor because when I'm installing this I don't have to go perfectly square I can actually open it in just a little bit so that when I'm done building out my corner it finishes perfectly square that's key so I can put it on a 2 degree angle screw it in add my corner bead and my mud build up and then it would be perfectly square such a simple system you can wrap anything with this you can make it as long as you need to you can use it to 3 feet down you don't have to have extra support let the plywood do the work keep like keep it straight keep it quick and you can DIY any bulkhead in your basement well there we go we've taught you how to frame an entire basement so you can finish your whole project by yourself just remember the one of the most important things when it comes to framing is when you're done clean up put your tools away make sure you unplug any power tools sweep up keep it clean sight remember your kids and your pets aren't going to be as careful walking around as you will be all right now listen if you love this kind of content make sure you subscribe to our channel click the link below ask questions I love the questions there's a lot of different kinds of basements a lot of different building techniques and a lot of different designs they're going to have to be covered so if you got questions put them in the comment section I'll answer your questions every single day and we will see you again in the next video [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 919,970

Rating: 4.9053068 out of 5

Keywords: home renovision, diy renovations, how to frame, how to frame a basement, how to frame a basement wall, how to frame a wall, basement framing, how to frame basement walls, finished basement, how to frame walls, framing basement walls, how to frame a basement a to z, diy framing basement, diy framing basement walls, basement framing step by step, basement framing walls, how to frame walls in a basement, a to z, from a to z, complete guide basement framing

Id: wN7ftczQfok

Length: 51min 39sec (3099 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019