Wall Framing

10x12 Gable Shed — 222 Gibson St SE · Plans p.22–26 · Materials: Order 2A (delivered Aug 15, 2026) · The post-and-plate skeleton, temporary bracing, and every measurement in sequence.

⚠ Before cutting any Phase 3 lumber: every dimension that fills between members is re-derived from the finished deck. Golden rule 5 — the deck is the reference, the tape beats the print. Absolute lengths stand (74 · 62½ · 30); plate lengths come off the deck; everything between is cut in place. Full rules: Lumber & Foundation Addendum.

Orientation — fixed for this build

Joists run east–west at 16″ o.c. — ten of them, at 0 / 16 / 32 … 144″ measured from the south end joist. That matters more than it sounds: every temporary brace foot has to land on a joist, so brace positions are constrained to 16″ multiples along the east and west walls.

The ridge runs north–south, 144″. Rafters span east–west across 120″ and bear on the east and west plates. The two 144″ walls are the bearing walls and they are 120″ apart.

Sequence — the whole day, in order

1. Finish the deck. Last two strip pieces, conduit hole, full nail-off.
2. Deck closeout measurements (table below, rows 1–4). Write the numbers on the deck.
3. Snap the post layout on the deck — all eight stations.
4. Cut station: eight half-laps, rafter layout marked on both bearing plates, four corner posts at 74″. Leave the other four posts long.
5. Stand and brace the four corner posts. Nothing else goes up yet.
6. Bearing plates on (east, west), laps down onto the post tops. Check each end is flush with its deck corner, confirm the posts still read plumb, then drive all three nails in every bearing lap — the gable plate is about to bury that surface.
7. Gable plates on (north, south), laps down onto the bearing laps. Tack only.
8. Spreader in — p.25 step 2, before plumbing. This fixes the 120″ wall separation.
9. Square the plate box — rack until the top diagonals match the deck diagonals.
10. Plumb every corner post, brace as you go. Six diagonals — opposing pairs on the bearing walls, mirrored singles on the gables.
11. Commit — drive every remaining lap nail and post toenail home.
12. Intermediate posts — two bearing-wall centers, two door posts, each cut to its measured gap.
13. Walk-on-the-walls test, then re-check diagonals and plumb.

Steps 8 and 9 are in the plans' order, not the intuitive one. The spreader goes in before plumbing (p.25 step 2). It fixes the wall-to-wall dimension without preventing you from racking the box — racking a rectangle changes its diagonals but not its side lengths, so the spreader and the squaring step do not fight each other.

Measurement schedule — what to measure, when

Every number you need tomorrow, in the order you need it. Nothing on this list is optional and nothing is out of order.

Later, when you frame the door: write the as-built RO on the post the day you frame it (p.24). The doors get built in Phase 5 to 5/8″ under the framed opening — measured from the wall, never from the plan.

Temporary bracing — where everything goes

Two different things get called "bracing" and they are not interchangeable:

The sequencing law: a permanent angle brace nailed to an unplumbed wall memorizes the lean forever. It is a brace holding the building wrong. Temp bracing first, always.

Plan view — every brace and block, with coordinates

North up, east right. Green = the six temporary 1x4 braces (shown in plan; each rises to 68″ at its post). Amber = the six deck blocks. Gray lines are the ten joists.

Note the two gable braces run opposite ways. South starts at the SW post and runs east; north starts at the NE post and runs west. That mirroring is the whole trick — see Brace placement below. Getting both of them sloping the same way is the one mistake on this drawing that actually matters.

Block coordinates — all six

Every block is a 2x4 laid flat (3½″ face down, 1½″ tall), long axis north–south. Coordinates are the block’s outside extents from two perpendicular deck edges. Set each one by pulling one tape from the west edge and one from the south edge — no other reference needed.

Why 4¼″ and 115¾″ repeat everywhere: 3½″ of post depth + ¾″ of brace thickness. That is the plane the brace lives in, and the block’s edge sits tight against it.

Why the gable blocks are 30″ and the others 20″: the bearing-wall blocks run along their brace and pick up two joists inside 20″. The gable blocks run crosswise to theirs and must reach further inboard to catch a second joist. Thirty inches gets B5 and B6 onto the joists at 16 & 32 and 112 & 128 — four screws each, same as the rest.

Elevation — a bearing wall (east shown), from inside

Both bearing walls get a true opposing pair. The two braces converge toward the middle without meeting: feet at Y 64 and Y 80, blocks at 46–66 and 78–98, and neither brace reaches the center post.

Elevation — the two gable walls, mirrored

This is the drawing that matters most. Each gable wall gets one brace, and they must point opposite ways. Both are drawn below with west at the left, so the mirroring is visible directly.

Cut every brace long and trim after. The exact length depends on where the top lands on the post — anywhere in the first few inches is fine — so it runs 91″ to 94″. All six come out of full 1x4x8 boards. Fix the foot station, let the length fall where it falls.

The deck blocks — exact geometry

Fasten blocks to JOISTS, never into the deck field. Straight from p.25. A brace foot screwed to bare plywood just pulls the ply up.

The block’s job is to put solid wood under the screws. Four 3″ screws into a joist carry roughly 400 lb in shear, far beyond anything a temporary 1x4 will deliver. You are not aiming the block at a load — you are aiming it at joists.

The rule that governs every block: all ten joists run east–west, so every block runs north–south — all six braces, both bearing walls and both gable walls. It is the only orientation that crosses joists. Cut them 20″ and a block always crosses two at 16″ o.c.

Nothing on this build twists. Correcting an earlier note on this page: it previously said the 1x4 twists ~90° between the post and the block and that this is normal. It is not. Torsional stiffness scales with thickness cubed, and ¾″ is not thin — twisting a 1x4 SPF strip 90° over 8 feet takes on the order of 60 ft-lb, and it would split along the grain before it got there. The brace stays in one flat plane from post top to deck. The block sits beside it, not under it, which is what makes that possible.

Detail — how the block sits next to the brace

Cross-section through a bearing wall, looking north along it. This is the view that shows why nothing twists: the brace’s wide face and the block’s outer face are in the same vertical plane.

Detail — the brace in elevation

The brace connections

The whole point of putting the block inboard rather than underneath: the brace’s wide face lies in one vertical plane — 3½″ to 4¼″ in from the deck edge — from the post top all the way to the deck. Nothing rotates, nothing twists, nothing needs a compound cut. The block’s outer edge is simply tight against that plane, giving the toe-screws somewhere solid to land.

If a foot ever feels loose: screw a second offcut down on the outboard side so the brace is trapped between two blocks. Unlikely to be needed on any of the six.

Yes, this puts screw holes in your finished floor. Expected and accounted for — they get filled and sanded in Floor Prep & Paint. Keeping them over joists means the fill has solid backing.

Brace placement — the six

The mechanism that decides this layout. A diagonal resists a lean in one direction by going into tension — the chord between its two anchor points gets longer, and the board simply has to not stretch. Lean the other way and that same chord gets shorter: the brace goes into compression, and a 1x4 over seven or eight feet buckles instantly. It contributes nothing.

Plan temporary bracing as a tension system and assume every compression member does nothing. A wall with one diagonal is braced in one direction only. The building has to be restrained in four: north lean, south lean, east lean, west lean.

The gable pair is mirrored on purpose, and it is the whole reason six boards are enough. The bearing walls each get a true opposing pair, so north and south lean are each restrained twice. The gable walls get one brace apiece — but pointed opposite ways, so the south brace takes a west lean in tension and the north brace takes an east lean in tension. Both directions covered, with one board each.

Load path for an east lean: the north brace holds the north plate; the north plate is half-lapped and nailed to both bearing plates; those are nailed to the south plate. The box moves as one piece, so restraining any corner of it restrains all of it.

Run both gable braces the same way and the building is rigid one way and hinged the other — which is the mode a gust finds.

Corner posts. SW and NE each pick up two braces in two planes; SE and NW get one each. That diagonal symmetry is a consequence of six boards, not an oversight — see the upgrade below if you would rather have all four doubled.

The south brace crosses the door opening and B5 sits on the floor inside the doorway. Unavoidable — there is only 28¾″ of blank wall either side of the door, far too narrow for a diagonal that does anything. Temporary bracing is allowed to cross openings precisely because it comes out. Step over it for a few weeks.

It passes right against the inner face of the west door post on the way down. Put two screws through it there — free extra restraint, and it stops the brace bouncing.

Why 68″ up and 64″ along: 68″ keeps the brace top clear of the plate so rafters have their airspace, 64″ puts the bearing-wall feet on joist lines, and the resulting diagonal comes out of a 96″ board with a trim cut.

Stock — this layout uses exactly what is on site

Optional upgrade — two more furring strips (~$8). Adding a mirrored brace to each gable wall gives every wall a true opposing pair and every corner post two braces in two planes. If you take it, pull the gable runs back to 48″ so the feet land at X 48 and X 72 rather than 8″ apart, which shortens those four boards to ≈ 83¼″. Not required — the six-board layout above restrains all four lean directions.

The spreader

The 1x4x12 PT is a fake collar tie. Once rafters go on, they thrust the two bearing walls apart until the real collar ties and the sheathing close the triangle. The spreader holds that dimension in the meantime — which is exactly why it cannot come out early.

Naming correction. This gets called "the 12-foot spreader" throughout our docs and in the p.25 annotation, which also says it "holds the span exactly at 12'." The 12 feet is the board, not the span. The bearing walls are the 144″ east and west walls and they sit 120″ apart — so the spreader spans ten feet and gets cut from the twelve-foot board. It has to span the direction the rafters span, or it isn't faking a collar tie at all.

Fastener schedule — every connection tomorrow

The framing gun does not come out tomorrow. Every connection above is either a hand-driven 16d or a screw. The gun's next real job is 2″ × .113 ring shank into wall sheathing in Phase 4. Leave it and the compressor put away once the floor is done — that's one less cord across a deck you're about to be carrying 12-foot 4x4s over.

Why toenails and not nails down through the plate

The instinct is right — nailing straight down through the plate into a post is easier and it doesn't push the post around. The geometry forbids it here. The top plate is a 4x4: 3½″ thick. The longest nail in the box is a 16d at 3½″. Driven down through the plate it arrives at the post's top face with zero penetration. There is no down-through-the-plate option on a 4x4 plate.

Toenailing into the post's side grain is also the better connection on its merits — end grain holds a nail at roughly half the withdrawal capacity of side grain. The plans toenail these for a reason.

If you ever want a belt-and-suspenders version: a 6″ structural screw (GRK RSS or Simpson SDWS) driven down through the plate into the post end grain is the only fastener long enough. Not in the order, not needed — the intermediate posts are loaded in compression and the plate bears directly on them.

Toenailing a 4x4 without walking it

1. Start the nail 1½″ up the post at about 60°.
2. Brace the post against your boot on the layout line — your foot is the backstop.
3. Alternate sides. Every toenail pushes the post; a nail on the opposing face pushes it back. Opposing pairs cancel the drift.
4. Stagger the two nails on each face — one at 1½″, one at 3″ — so they aren't splitting along a single grain line.
5. Blunt every tip with a hammer tap. A 0.162″ nail is fat, you are 1½″ from an end, and PT southern yellow pine splits. A crushed tip severs fibres instead of wedging them.

Four, not eight. Two nails on each of one opposing pair of faces gives roughly the capacity of six gun nails — plenty for a post base whose real hold-down is the plate box above and the sheathing to come. Eight nails into a 3½″ square base is how you split it. If a post still feels lively once the plates are on, add one more per face on the other pair.

Plumbing a post — the actual procedure

Not by tapping. A 74″ 4x4 that's already toenailed will not move usefully under hammer taps, and tapping after nailing just bends the nails and splits the base. The brace is the adjuster.

1. Stand the post on its layout marks. Drive two toenails only — one opposing pair — enough to hold station, not enough to lock it.
2. Screw the brace top to the post first, at 68″, and let the brace hang free at the bottom.
3. Level on one face. Push the post top by hand until the bubble centers. Flip the level end-for-end and read it again — if the bubble moves, split the difference; that's your level's own error, and yours has some.
4. Holding plumb, screw the brace foot to its block. The post is now held without anyone standing there.
5. Check the second face, at 90° to the first. Correct with the second brace the same way.
6. Re-check face one — fixing face two usually disturbs it slightly. Iterate once; it converges fast.
7. Only now drive the remaining toenails.

Read plumb on the faces, never on a corner. A level held diagonally across the arris reads a blend of both axes and tells you nothing you can act on.

The sight check, adapted for our lot. The plans say step back 50–100 feet and sight the wall by eye. Our fence corner denies that standoff on the north and east. Sight the east wall down the northwest diagonal instead — from the far southwest corner of the yard — and where the eye has no room, trust the level.

Which nails get left for the commit step

The point of tacking is that the box stays adjustable through the squaring step. But one joint is an exception and has to be finished immediately — see the warning below.

Why the bearing lap can’t wait. The bearing plate’s lap is a notch in its top face, so the nailing surface is the 3½″ × 3½″ tongue left underneath — and the gable plate’s lap drops onto exactly that square. Once it lands, those nails are unreachable for the life of the building. Finish the bearing laps before the gable plates go on.

It costs nothing to commit them early: squaring the box is post lean, not joint slip. The plates stay fastened to the post tops and the whole assembly leans as a unit — three nails in a lap joint don’t resist that. The only things that must be right at that moment are plate ends flush with the deck corners and posts still plumb, and both were established when you braced the corners.

You cannot square with only two walls up. Two parallel bearing walls are not a rectangle — nothing sets the 120″ separation or the corner angles until the gable plates land, so there are no diagonals to measure. There is exactly one squaring event, and it happens with all four plates on.

The intermediate posts and every screw connection are not on this list — they are installed after the box is already squared and committed, so they go in complete the first time.

Crown, and which face goes out

Correcting earlier guidance: "crown the posts and face the crown out" overstates it. Crown is a horizontal-member concern. It matters enormously in joists — crowns down gives you a permanent dish in the floor — and it matters in the top plates. In a 74″ vertical 4x4 carrying axial load, it is close to irrelevant, and there is no meaningful "out" to point it at on a corner post anyway.

Shimming a low post

When a top plate runs downhill, diagnose before you shim. Put the level on the deck at each post base along that wall:

Lift the plate, not the post. Pry bar under the plate right at the post, take the weight, slide the shim under the base, release. Prying the post itself levers against four toenails and opens the base.

What actually matters is local, not global. A uniform ⅛″ of fall across twelve feet of top plate is invisible and every rafter still seats. A ⅛″ dip at one post drops one rafter seat and shows up as a wave in the roof plane. Chase the local dip; forgive the uniform slope.

Rafter layout — the full station list

Marked on both bearing plates tomorrow, while they're flat on horses at waist height. The plates carry this information forward to Phase 4 so nobody is measuring from a ladder.

Write SOUTH on both plates before you mark anything. Both plates get laid out from the same end of the building. Measure each from its own left-hand end and you produce mirrored layouts, and every rafter pair lands racked.

Seven pairs, fourteen rafters — which is why the order carries fourteen hurricane ties. End rafters sit with their outside faces flush with the ends of the plate; the five interior rafters divide the remainder evenly:

Method: square a line across the plate at each "line" value, then put an X on the north side of every line — the rafter body always covers the X. R1 needs no line; its outside face is simply flush with the south end of the plate.

Spacing works out to 23¾″, not a round 24″. That is correct and intentional: 144″ with both end rafters pulled inside the ends leaves 142½″ between end-rafter centers, and 142½ ÷ 6 = 23¾. Every station lands on a clean quarter-inch mark and R4 lands on 72″ exactly — use that as your check. If R4 doesn't read 72″, you have an arithmetic error, not a lumber problem. Tighter than 24″ o.c. is conservative, and nothing here needs a round number: the roof is 1x4 strapping at 20–24″ o.c. running crosswise, not sheet goods, so there are no panel edges that have to land on a rafter.

If your plate isn't 144″: end rafter centers go at ¾″ and (L − ¾″); interior spacing is (L − 1½) ÷ 6. Recompute rather than forcing the table.

The cedar ridge takes the same seven stations, marked on both faces — it's also a 144″ board, running the same direction, receiving the same rafter pairs.

Wall elevations — infill layout

All four walls, viewed from inside looking out, at one scale. Dimensions run from the left-hand end of each drawing, which is labeled.

Revised 2 Sep 2026. The 12″ row is gone and a row at the deck replaces it. The east wall has two symmetric liner/backing studs plus two plywood-gap studs. North stud centers remain 40 15/16″ and 79 1/16″. West layout is now field-confirmed: 34″ clear ROs, with each outer stud's brace-side edge 21½″ from the adjacent corner post's inside face. Former west coordinates and 71″ cuts are superseded.

East wall

Two bays of 66⅞″ between the corner posts and the center post, four studs and four angle braces. The symmetric pair at 36⅞″ and 107″ stiffens the liner and gives fixings; the plywood-gap pair calculates to approximately 48″ and 95⅞″. If the studs must go in before plywood delivery, use those centerlines and the specified removable screws; verify the real three-panel assembly with two 1/8″ spacers before sheathing and adjust only if delivered width differs materially from 47.76″. The centered assembly leaves approximately 0.173″ on each corner-post face. Rows at 0, 24, 36, 48 and 72. Four angle braces, per plans p.26 Fig 2: one at each corner plus a V at the center post.

West wall

Rows remain at 0, 24, 48 and 72. The 48″ row is interrupted by each opening; the full-depth sill is installed only after its final height and drainage detail are settled. This full-height arrangement modifies JCS p.26, which used short window studs between long horizontal nailers.

South wall

Side panels only — 21¾″ clear each side of the door. Four rows and no studs: the door posts and corner posts are the verticals, and the exterior seams land on them.

North wall

Two ripped studs at centers 40 15/16″ and 79 1/16″ from the west outside face, producing clear bays of 36 11/16″, 36⅝″ and 36 11/16″ between the full-width corner posts and 1½″-wide ripped studs. The 1/16″ difference is intentional rounding around center; do not move the studs. No additional panel-line studs are needed. Preserve a 1/8″ panel gap centered on each stud when cutting sheathing and liner; that changes panel cut widths, not these stud locations. The 72″ row carries tool hooks and rod rails. The 12×12 vent is in the gable above the plate.

The braced corner — don't leave it open

Unlined, it is not a flat panel — it is a hole. The liner sits ¼″ back from the frame faces. With nothing in the triangle you are looking at the back of the exterior sheathing, 3½″ back. One corner of each braced wall would read as a deep recess against a shallow shadow line everywhere else.

Naming, sizing and fastening

What to call them

Terminology, corrected. The ordinary verticals are simply studs. On the east wall, two additional studs specifically back the centered 1/8″ plywood gaps, so calling that pair plywood-gap studs is accurate. Their positions come from the complete centered panel-and-gap assembly, not nominal 48/96 sheet marks.

Ripped means ¾″ off one edge — not cut in half

A 2x4 is 3½″ wide. You are taking ¾″ off, leaving 2¾″. Ripped in half would be 1¾″ — that is not this.

Both directions get ripped. Every girt and every stud. The rule is not horizontal-versus-vertical, it is hidden versus proud: anything the liner covers gets ripped, anything meant to show stays full 3½″.

The ¾″ gauge — how to set them flush

Every ripped member must sit flush with the exterior face, filling 0–2¾″ of the 3½″ bay, so the sheathing bears on it. Set one centered by mistake and both faces are wrong.

Cut a ¾″ gauge block and hold it against the post’s interior face. Push the girt until it touches the gauge, then fasten. Post 3½″ less girt 2¾″ leaves exactly ¾″ — so a scrap of your S4S 1x stock, which is a true 0.75″, sets every piece on the build identically without a straightedge.

The nominal thickness of a 15/32 panel is 0.469″; the actual is 0.451″. Ripping to 2 13/16″ instead would restore a true ¼″ reveal, but the gauge block becomes 11/16″ — not a thickness you can pull off the scrap pile. The extra 0.05″ of shadow is invisible, and a slightly deeper reveal is more forgiving of PT posts that cup or twist as they dry.

Fastening

Why 2½″ and not 3″. Toe-driven at about 30° starting 1″ back from the girt’s end, the screw spends 1″ / cos 30° = 1.15″ crossing the girt. A 2½″ screw therefore lands 1.35″ in the post; NDS wants 6D, which for a #9 at 0.177″ is 1.06″. It clears the bar by 27%. The 10D figure (1.77″) applies to connections carrying design load, and these carry none. 2½″ also runs ~62 per pound against ~47, and drives with less torque and less splitting in dense PT.

Why two per end, in opposing directions. Not for load — a girt carries none. For rotation: one screw lets the girt pivot around it, and it will, the moment you press a liner panel against it or drive 330 liner screws into it. Two screws driven parallel from the same face still let the girt pull straight off. One angled down through the top edge and one angled up through the bottom edge locks it in both directions.

Exception — the 0 row. With ½″ of clearance underneath you cannot get a driver on its bottom edge. Those ends take both screws from the top edge, splayed left and right instead of up and down. Same rotation lock, different plane.

Screws, not 16d toenails, and Rule 6 is not violated. Rule 6 governs gun versus hammer, not nail versus screw. Three reasons screws win here: the frame is standing, plumbed and braced, and hammering moves it — that is exactly what put 3/8″ of rack into the plate box. A 16d driven 1½″ from the end of a piece ripped to 2¾″ will split it. And nothing here is in the load path, so a screw backing out is a correction rather than a repair.

Every fastener the walls need

The 364 is exact, counted off the elevations: 81 horizontal pieces plus 10 studs, 182 connection ends, 2 screws each. Buy 360 for waste and redos. Torx is not vanity — 330 liner screws driven at awkward angles with a Phillips means cam-out, stripped heads, and screws you cannot back out later, which was the whole reason for choosing screws over nails. Never drywall screws: hardened, brittle, and they corrode on contact with PT.

What holds what — the numbers

W = 2850 × G² × D per inch of penetration. Liner G≈0.50, girt G≈0.55, #8 at D=0.164″. These are NDS formulas for solid sawn lumber applied to plywood — trust the ratios, keep margin on the absolute numbers.

The rule for hanging things: divide how far it sticks out by how far apart your screws are. If that number is bigger than 1, the pull on the top screw exceeds the weight of what you hung, and you need to be in a girt.

A 10″-deep shelf bracket screwed at two points 4″ apart, carrying 30 lb centered 5″ out: 30 × 5 = 150 in-lb, divided by the 4″ couple, is 37.5 lb of tension on one screw — against 45 lb of pull-through if you missed the girt. It fails the first time someone leans on it. Into the girt it is a factor of 5.7.

Things hanging flat against the wall — a broom, a coil of rope, an extension cord — load the screw in shear instead, and are fine either way. Projection matters more than weight.

Why the bottom row sits at the deck and not at 12″

An earlier revision put a row at 12″ to halve the unbacked span at kick, tire and mower-deck height. The row that got built instead sits at the deck, and it does a different job better.

Set the bottom edge ½″ above the deck, gauged with a liner offcut, and toenail to the posts like every other row. Two reasons not to bed it flat on the plywood: a member lying on the floor wicks whatever gets hosed, tracked or melted onto the deck straight into the wall base; and the deck ply edge is not a perfect line, so held up you cut square and ignore it.

The liner still runs all the way down to the deck. The girt backs everything above ½″; the liner’s bottom half-inch simply rests on the plywood and closes the wall cavity. Holding the liner up instead would leave a ½″ × 3½″ slot around the entire room opening into the cavity — a dust trap and a mouse run. Prime the bottom edge of every liner panel before it goes up. Five minutes with a brush, and it is the only end grain touching the floor.

The gap this leaves, stated plainly: 20½″ of unbacked 0.451″ liner between the 0 row and the 24 row. A deliberate shove or a mower tire will flex it visibly. The fix, if it ever matters, is three or four 12″ offcuts nailed in only where equipment actually parks — a ten-minute job with the liner off. Not in the current spec.

Window elevation — 48″ sill reference is provisional

And no, the girt row does not have to align with the sill. That was convenience, not a constraint — it means the 48″ row runs unbroken. Move the sill and the 48″ row simply gets interrupted at each window, with the sill becoming its own full-depth member. The girt still backs the liner seam in the strips either side of each opening, which is all it needs to do.

Worth moving if you want light reaching the floor, or a view while crouched. Not worth moving for the view standing up.

Girt rows — every row has a reason

All rows except 0 are top-edge references. Row 0 is a bottom-edge reference: ½″ above the deck.

The 36″ row is not a ledger. It was specified as bench-ledger backing when the bench was going to hang off the wall. The bench stands on four legs on the deck, so the wall carries nothing. The row stays because 36″ is work-surface height and rows at 24 and 48 would leave you mounting a power strip, a task light or tool holders a foot away from where you want them. It also gives an anchor if you ever screw the bench back rail to the wall to stop it creeping — horizontal restraint, a few pounds, nothing the girt would notice.

What got dropped: the plans’ 34–36″ nailer on the north and west walls. Its job was giving board-and-batten siding something to nail to mid-wall — and we replaced that siding with plywood plus shingles, which nail to the sheathing.

Pegboard note. Pegboard cannot sit flat against the liner — the hooks need clearance behind it. So it always gets vertical furring at 16″ o.c., screwed through the liner into the girts. Girt spacing is therefore not the binding constraint on that wall. The six temporary braces come down in Phase 5 and become that furring — by then they will have been drying under a roof for months.

Stud placement — backing and centered plywood gaps

The old layouts successively used nominal 48/96 marks and then 47.76/95.52 marks. The latter used the measured panel width but still omitted the required 1/8″ gaps. The corrected east layout treats three panels and two gaps as one assembly: 3 × 47.76 + 2 × 0.125 = 143.530″. Centered on the 143.875″ wall, it leaves 0.1725″ at each corner and puts the two gap centers at approximately 47.995″ and 95.880″ from the north datum.

East is symmetric about 71 15/16″, north about 60″. North in particular went from bays of 43¾ / 46½ / 19¾ — sheet-driven, not chosen — to nearly equal bays of 36 11/16″ / 36⅝″ / 36 11/16″. That wall is the tool wall, and those two studs plus the corner posts are the only solid vertical fixings in 113″ of wall.

Preferred: lay out the real assembly before final fastening. If the panels have not been delivered, install the plywood-gap studs at 48″ and 95⅞″ centers with the specified removable screws. When the panels arrive, measure three sheets, include two physical 1/8″ spacers, center the assembly and verify both gaps still land safely on the 1½″ stud faces before sheathing.

Sheet goods — settled 23 Aug 2026

Corrected 2 Sep 2026. East keeps gap-stud centers at ~48″ and ~95⅞″. North keeps centers at 40 15/16″ and 79 1/16″; its 1/8″ installation gaps require narrower panel cuts, not moved studs. South seams on door posts. West seams will be recalculated after the brace-clear window coordinates are measured. The current packing preserves the sheet-count plan but is not final cut authority for north or west pieces.

As-built — two angle braces on the west wall. One was installed by mistake at the NW corner (25 Aug) and a matching one was added at the SW corner (26 Aug). Both remain. JCS p.26 used long horizontal window nailers; the modified design instead uses short 34″ headers between full-height studs.

Confirmed consequences. Both outer studs clear their braces. Their brace-side edges are 21½″ from the adjacent corner-post inside faces; south-datum centers are 25¾″, 61¼″, 82⅝″ and 118⅛″. All four studs run deck to plate. The 72″ girt row still terminates at each braced corner as a field-cut stub. This supersedes the former fixed 3″ shift and 71″ scheme.

Same panel inside and out. One thickness, one blade setting, offcuts interchangeable between faces, and the 2¾″ rip stays correct everywhere.

Why not the 19/32 (0.578″). It is 2.1× stiffer — thickness cubed — but the bottom bay is better fixed by blocking, which halves the span and is 8× at a fraction of the price. On fastener holding it buys only 1.28×, because withdrawal is linear in penetration, and a longer screw that reaches a girt is worth 4× for nothing. It also drops the reveal to 0.17″, which a cupped post can close entirely, and adds 11 lb per sheet to panels you are lifting alone.

Yield warning. Net liner area is ~208 sq ft against 8 sheets at 31.8 sq ft each = 254 gross, so 8 sheets needs 82% yield. Every bay is 74″ tall — taller than the 47.76″ panel width — which forces full-height pieces to run the long way and wastes the offcut.

Girt depth and the liner — decided

Superseded. An earlier revision of this document recommended flat girts, liner over everything, stopped at 74″ — a flat wall with the posts hidden. That is not what is being built. The decision below replaced it, and the frame has been cut to suit.

A flat 2x4 is 3½″. A 4x4 post is 3½″ deep. So a girt laid flat between posts fills the bay depth exactly and lands flush on both faces — leaving no recess to drop a liner panel into. That single dimensional coincidence decides the entire look of the interior, and it decides it quietly: with flat girts the liner has to run over posts, girts and all, and the exposed frame is gone entirely.

The liner stops at 74″, under the plate. It cannot run past it: the liner is recessed into the bays and butts the posts’ side edges, so there is nothing at plate height for it to lap onto. The 4x4 top plate therefore stays exposed as a continuous timber band around the room, along with the corner lap seams and the ¼″ oversized-notch gap.

Fill the notch while the building is open. The oversized lap notches are now finish surface. Cut a filler block from a 4x4 offcut, glue it, plane it flush, ease the edges. The same twenty minutes in September is a cramped overhead job on a ladder.

Photograph every wall before the liner goes on. Once it is covered, the only record of where the girts and studs are is a photograph — and you will want it the first time you hang a shelf.

Windows and weather — the rough openings

Absent from the plans, which are Vermont-oriented and assume board siding. This belongs to Phase 4 and it is sequence-critical: most of it cannot be added after the housewrap is on without cutting the wrap.

A sill pan is a shallow waterproof tray under the window that catches water and sends it back outside. Water will get past a sash — wind-driven rain, cracked glazing putty, condensation running down the inside of the glass in winter. Without a pan it soaks into bare framing and rot starts in the bottom two corners, hidden behind trim. The pan does not stop the leak; it makes the leak harmless.

The shingle rule. Every layer laps over the one below it, so water can only ever run down and out. Order:

1. Sill pan onto bare framing — first, before the window
2. Window set in, sitting on the pan
3. Jamb flashing laps over the pan’s end dams
4. Head flashing laps over the jamb flashing
5. Housewrap laps over the head flashing

Do it in the wrong order and you have built a funnel.

Two details to get right. The full 3½″ RO sill needs an outward-draining pan profile; its exact elevation and whether the wood itself remains level are still pending the final cross-section. And the corners are where these fail: tape does not fold cleanly into an inside corner, so use pre-formed corner patches or cut a slit and overlap, always with the outer piece on top.

Why this matters here. The salvage sashes have failed paint and glazing plus at least one open corner joint. They are now scheduled for complete restoration before installation, but the pan remains the backup drainage layer for future glazing failure and condensation.

Housewrap seam tape is the lesser item, and honestly optional. Cap nails hold the wrap on; they do not seal the laps. Plenty of outbuildings get 6″ laps and cap nails and nothing else. At ~$18 it is cheap enough to just do.

As-built — Phase 3 frame, Aug 19–20 2026

What to leave for solo work

Deliberately not on tomorrow's list, because none of it needs a second person:

• Rip the stock first — 2¾″ on the table saw, every girt and every stud, all in one session. The blade setting must not change between boards.
• Girts — four perimeter rows at 0, 24, 48 and 72″, plus a fifth at 36″ on the east wall only. 76 pieces of pure repetition, none longer than 66⅞″.
• Studs — 10 total, full 74″ deck to plate: four on the east wall (the symmetric pair plus the plywood-gap pair at field-verified ~48″ / ~95⅞″), two on the north, and the four window studs on the west.
• Window RO framing — sills, headers and all four studs remain full 3½″ depth. Confirmed header/sill cut length: 34″, matching the confirmed clear RO. Header bottom and sill top remain pending the final measured sash height and sill-pan profile; the window top elevation governs the header.
• Door header — 62½″ in flat 1x4 pine, fastened with the 1⅝″ liner screws, not the 2½″.
• Angle braces — 4x4, 30″ long point to long point, 45°, eight of them: four on the east wall (one per corner plus a V at the center post), two on the north and two on the west, one per corner. Three 16d per end. After the frame is plumbed and braced. Start with the center-post pair — no temporary bracing is attached there, so nothing has to move.

Window studs run full height now, and still don't bear. They go deck to plate rather than sitting as cripples between the sill and header rails — a change from the earlier plan, made for the liner: a full-height stud backs the panel above and below the glass and gives one continuous fixing line instead of three stubs. The sill and header are then infill between the studs. Nothing lands on any of them. Same logic as the 1x4 door header: nothing bears on a gable-end opening, because the roof loads travel down the side walls.

Provenance

Written Aug 19, 2026, ahead of the Phase 3 framing day. Sources: plans p.22–26 with the Gibson St annotations, the Aug 13 fastener decisions (Rule 6 — no gun toenailing), and Order 2A as delivered Aug 15. Two corrections are recorded on this page against earlier guidance: post crown orientation (a horizontal-member concern, not a post concern) and the spreader's span (ten feet, from a twelve-foot board). Related: Build Guide Phase 3, Nail Guns & Fasteners Rule 6, Base & Deck Construction for the deck this all references, Annotated Plans p.22–26.