Interior and Exterior Plywood Packing Diagrams

15/32 Plytanium pine sheathing · actual 0.451″ × 47.76″ × 95.76″ · $26.32/sheet · generated 23 Aug 2026 · audited 31 Aug 2026

Built Oct 1, 2026: all exterior wall sheathing is installed. North and south sheathing was cut back to mid-plate (so the gable strips nail to the plate's upper half); east and west sheathing sits about 1-3/4″ above the plate. The W2 and W4 window openings are still solid sheathing, to be cut out later. The cutting notes below are kept as the record of how it was packed.

Bottom-edge clarification — 17 September 2026

The 85.47″ panel height ends approximately flush with the rim bottom; it does not include a ¼″ plywood underhang or create a projecting drip edge. Complete required plywood-to-rim fastening before taping. The visible starter shingles extend 1″ below the plywood (open: Cedar_Shingle_Sourcing.md says ¼″), with the underlying layer ½″ below it. Tape approximately 3″ up the exterior face, wrap the plywood edge with a short underside return, then lap felt over its upper edge. Keep subsequent shingle nails above the tape; do not omit required sheathing nails. At an illustrative 7″ exposure, the visible starter nail line is approximately 7″ above the plywood bottom. Exposure remains product/grade-dependent. No metal bottom flashing is planned. This clarification overrides any implication below that the plywood itself overhangs and sheds water clear of the rim.

See Build Guide: bottom-edge detail for sequencing, drainage, exposure limits and sources.

Why the yield is what it is

One fact governs this whole page: every wall is taller than a sheet is wide. The exterior runs 85.47″, the liner 74″, against a panel only 47.76″ across. No piece can lie sideways, so height always runs down the sheet’s 95.76″ length and the sheet’s width becomes the panel’s width.

The consequence is that panel width barely affects the sheet count — a 35″-wide panel and a 47″-wide panel each consume one sheet. What you can do is pair narrow panels side by side, which is where most of the recovered yield on this page comes from.

One spare sheet is included in the order figure. A mis-cut on an 85″ panel costs a whole sheet, and a second delivery costs more than one.

The detailed packing fits the gables into the 12-sheet exterior allocation. A large-panel gable scheme would require dedicated material (roughly two additional sheets for a practical two-half layout, subject to the final seam arrangement) and backing at its panel joints.

The current scheme instead cuts 10″-wide vertical strips, adapting the vertical-board sequence shown on JCS p.29. The strips are packed into a mixture of side and top offcuts left by the wall-body pieces; the offcuts are not eleven identical 10.29″ × 47.76″ rectangles. The sheet-by-sheet diagrams below, rather than that earlier generalization, govern the cuts. On the dimensions shown, the gables add no sheets to the 12-sheet exterior count.

Cut the gable strips in place. Their tops follow the 26.5° rake and the heights step 5″ per strip (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, then back down), but rake geometry depends on where the rafters actually land. Scribe them against set rafters — the plans’ own rule, “run siding wild and cut in place.” The drawings below show bounding boxes, not finished shapes.

One trade to know about: 24 small pieces instead of 4 large ones, and an unbacked butt joint every 10″. Both are behind #30 felt and under shingles, so weather is handled — but a shingle nail landing within a half-inch of a joint holds less than one in the field.

Exterior sheathing — 12 sheets

Sheathing runs vertically in one piece, 85.47″ tall: 1¾″ above the plate on the east and west walls (north and south sheathing was cut back to mid-plate as built, so the gable strips nail to the plate's upper half), 3½″ of plate, 74″ of post, then 6.22″ lapping down over the deck ply edge and the 2x6 rim so runoff drips clear of the floor frame. Every wall-body vertical seam lands on a post or a stud. The two gables are cut as 10″-wide vertical strips, adapting the vertical-board sequence on JCS p.29. The strips fit into the particular side and top offcuts shown in the sheet diagrams, so the gables cost zero additional sheets in this packing. Gable strips are drawn as bounding boxes — the real top of each is cut to the 26.5° rake, in place, against the set rafters.

Confirmed seam geometry — 2 Sep 2026. On the north wall, center 1/8″ gaps on stud centers 40 15/16″ and 79 1/16″ from the west outside face; cut N1/N2/N3 to 40⅞″ / 38″ / 40⅞″. On the west wall, center the four 1/8″ gaps on stud centers 25¾″, 61¼″, 82⅝″, and 118⅛″ from the south outside face; cut W1–W5 to 25 11/16″ / 35⅜″ / 21¼″ / 35⅜″ / 25 11/16″. The gaps belong at the supported seams—not spread across the panel fields or pushed to the corners.

Where each panel lands on the wall

Viewed from outside for the exterior, from inside for the liner. Each block shows its panel ID, its width, and which sheet to cut it from.

Sheet-by-sheet cutting layout

Every sheet is 47.76″ × 95.76″. Grain runs the long way. A 1/8″ kerf is allowed between pieces.

Interior liner — 11 sheets

The liner is recessed 0.30″ behind the post faces, so it butts the posts but runs over girts and studs. Panels are full height, 74″, deck to plate underside — no horizontal seams anywhere in the room.

Where each panel lands on the wall

Viewed from outside for the exterior, from inside for the liner. Each block shows its panel ID, its width, and which sheet to cut it from.

Sheet-by-sheet cutting layout

Every sheet is 47.76″ × 95.76″. Grain runs the long way. A 1/8″ kerf is allowed between pieces.

Reading these

• Panel IDs are stable between the wall drawings and the sheet drawings. Find a panel on the wall, read its sheet number, and go cut it.
• Cut the widest pieces first. The packing assumes it; cutting narrow pieces out of a full sheet early will cost you sheets.
• The exterior offcuts assigned to gable pieces are spoken for. Their shapes and source sheets vary; follow the sheet-by-sheet diagrams and do not cut those remnants up for blocking until the gables are done.
• Liner sheets leave a 21.76″ strip, full length. Keep those: they are the right size for the pegboard furring.
• Verify against a real panel before cutting. These drawings assume 47.76 × 95.76. Stack two sheets, measure, and if the delivery differs, tell me before the saw runs. (Historical: the sheathing is cut and installed as of Oct 1, 2026.)

Audit notes — updated 2 Sep 2026

• Source hierarchy: the purchased JCS plans are the baseline. They show vertical board siding installed around framed window openings (pp.26–29), not plywood sheathing or an interior liner. Everything on this page is therefore a packing proposal for the modified enclosure, not a JCS detail.
• The 12-sheet exterior count is still supported: the wall body requires East 3 + West 5 + North 3 + South 2 panel pieces, packed onto 12 sheets under the vertical, full-height-panel approach. W1 and W3 share sheet 12; W5 occupies sheet 9.
• West horizontal geometry is confirmed: each window RO is 34″ wide; the outer edge of each outside window stud is 21½″ from the inside face of its adjacent corner post. The resulting stud centers are 25¾″, 61¼″, 82⅝″, and 118⅛″ from the south outside wall face. Only sill elevation and therefore the vertical window cutout remain provisional; those do not alter these full-height panel widths.
• Recommended window-panel sequence: cut W2 and W4 as full rectangular wall panels, fasten them temporarily/peripherally over the completed framing, and cut the openings in place from the framing. If the openings must be precut, leave 1–2″ corner bridges until the panel is positioned. A fully precut opening would leave very narrow, fragile side webs at the currently depicted widths.
• East-wall gaps and seam stations—corrected: three 47.76″ panels total 143.280″. With two intentional 1/8″ panel gaps, the assembly occupies 143.530″, leaving 0.345″ across the stated 143.875″ wall. Center the assembly, leaving approximately 0.173″ (about 11/64″) on the face of each 3½″ corner post beneath the felt and corner trim. Do not enlarge the field seams to absorb this residual. The earlier seam-stud stations at 47.76″ and 95.52″ assumed zero gaps and are superseded; calculated centered gap/stud centers are approximately 47.995″ (use 48″) and 95.880″ from the same datum. A centered 1/8″ gap on a 1½″ stud face leaves about 11/16″ of support beneath each panel edge. Before installing those two studs, lay out three delivered panel widths with physical 1/8″ spacers across the measured wall, center the assembly, and use the actual gap centers rather than the calculated figures.
• Gable strips are an enclosure choice, not proven structural sheathing: JCS p.29 supports the sequence analogy because its boards span from plate to rake, but it does not validate narrow plywood strips as a continuous shear panel. Treat them as closure and shingle-nailing material, keep shingle fasteners away from unsupported strip joints where practical, and preserve the detailed offcuts until every gable piece is accounted for.

Primary source: purchased JCS plans, especially pp.26–29, for the original framing/siding sequence · Modified-layout inputs: Wall_Framing.html for the proposed girt and stud layout these seams land on · Shed_Orders.html for the order line.