I had the lumber company deliver all the materials to build the garage. Once it arrived and dumped on the grass next to the driveway, it was time to go through the materials to start building. I found the bill of materials and the plans for the garage. With the plans laid out on the hood of my blue Ford Mustang II, Rehtorbym and I talked about where we should start.
Since I forgot to put in the anchor bolts when we poured the foundation walls, I purchased the wedge style anchor bolts. These bolts would expand in the concrete as you tightened the bolts. I started marking out bolt locations. With my corded Black & Decker® drill, Rehtorbym drilled the holes. While he worked on the anchor bolts, I started pulling 2 x 4’s to build the walls. Rehtorbym informed me that he burnt out my corded Black & Decker® drill. At least we knew the concrete walls were not going to fall apart soon. Fortunately, he had another drill, but he needed to go home to get it. When he returned, Rehtorbym finished drilling and pounded in the anchor bolts.
We were ready to build the walls. We started on the back wall. The plan called for a 22 foot wide by 8 feet tall wall. All the 2 x 4’s were 8 feet long. If you included the bottom and top plates, we would need to cut all studs to 7 feet 7-1/2 inches. As newbie Just-Okay DIYer, I decided, we would just leave the studs at 8 feet. Not would it only save us a lot of cutting, but I would gain some head room in the garage.
We cut two 2 x 4 to six feet for the bottom and top plates (22 feet equals 8 feet plus 8 feet plus six feet) using my Craftsman® circular saw. Laying out the bottom and top plates on the floor we put the wall studs in between. With my Craftsman® tape measure, we marked the stud locations on both plates. So far, so good.
There were no power tools for building these walls. Just hammers and brute strength. I am not sure why we tried to toe-nail the studs to the plates, instead of straight nailing them from the other side. This fiasco let to bruised thumbs, fingers, toes, and feet and plenty of swearing. This method resulted in studs not plumb and not 16 inches on center. As newbie Just-Okay DIYer, I did not understand the issues this would cause us later.
We started installing the composite sheathing on the outside of the walls. The sheathing is 4 feet wide by 8 feet tall. Our inability to place the studs at 16 inches on center had the edge of the sheathing not lining up with the center of the studs. Additionally, since we decided to make the walls 8’-3” tall, we had a 3-inch gap on the top of the wall. We were not going to take apart the wall and cut all the studs to fix this problem. We would just cut 3-inch strips to fill in the gap.
Feeling like we were at an Amish barn raising, we lifted our first wall. As we tried to place the wall on the foundation, the anchor bolts were in the way. Oops! We lowered the wall. We marked off the location of the bolts on the bottom plate and drilled out the holes. Lining up the bolts with the holes while holding up a wall was precarious. We did not want to drop the wall as it would fall eight feet and destroy the wall. We moved the wall back and forth and side to side, the wall would not drop onto the foundation. As we paused, Rehtorbym asked me, “Did you remove the nuts from the anchor bolts?” Frustrated, I yelled back sarcastically, “Oh really, I did not know I was supposed to!” We put the wall back down again. Rehtorbym and I removed the nuts from all the anchor bolts around the foundation. I found an empty plastic bag and put them in it. I tossed the bag into the nail box. Not feeling like any Amish barn raising now, we raised the wall one more time. This time the wall dropped down on to the foundation. With one foot on the bottom plate and each hand hanging onto a stud, I put my forehead on a stud and let out a sigh.
The wind suddenly picked up and my hands were straining to hold on to the wall. We did not prepare any braces to hold the wall in place. As the wind blew, Rehtorbym and I looked at each other. I could see the terror in his face as he held onto the wall. He then yelled, “Get some 2 x 4’s.” I gathered up two 2 x 4’s, some nails and a hammer. Using one nail, I pounded the first brace into a stud by Rehtorbym. Rehtorbym grabbed onto the brace, as I ran over to the other side to nail in the other 2 x 4. We were not close to having the wall secured. Rehtorbym was not planning on holding the brace all day. I cut some stakes from a 2 x 4 with my Craftsman® circular saw. Lowering the braces to the ground, I pounded the stakes next to each brace and nailed the braces to the stakes. 2 braces and 2 nails in each was not going to hold the wall, but it gave us a chance to take a breather. Sweating and drained, I said to Rehtorbym, “Let’s finish this up, and call it a day.” He laughed and nodded in agreement.
We added braces to each end of the wall and secured the braces with several nails. We did not install the anchor bolt nuts, nor did we level the wall. We were done for the day.