BuckinghamBLOG: Framing the 2nd Floor

This week the fireplace was installed! The opening in the concrete was a little wide, as planned, so wood studs were anchored to the concrete for the fireplace to be attached to. The depth of the alcove was not quite deep enough so one of the laborers had to jackhammer a few inches off of the whole back side!

The flue was attached and extended as far as we had built the chimney. The installation company would return to extend it all the way up later.

The stone columns and moulding also arrived and were stacked in the house until we could install them.

Now that the last of the shoring has been removed, the second floor interior framing could be started. The center walls that aligned with the structural posts and plumbing were laid out first, then the rest of the walls were laid out around them. In this photo, Charlie is laying out the sill plates for Kyle's room.

The Master Bedroom Suite was also laid out. The wall below separates the Sitting room from the Bathroom.

Under this window will be the Master Bath.

Now that the windows and doors were finally on site, I was able to start installing them. The first ones in were the Kitchen/Great Room windows.

Tim Adams from All Year Roofing came by to offer advice on the first windows, making sure we installed the flashing properly so they would not leak.

The most challenging windows turned out to be the arch topped windows in the curved wall of the Master Bedroom tower. To simplify the forming of the wall, the openings were formed as rectangles, so now the openings needed to be adapted to fit the windows.

Most of the upstairs walls were framed, except for the ones blocked by the huge stacks of drywall!

The skylight openings with the forms removed:

Up on the roof, the forms were being set for the parapet walls. All the leftover shoring lumber was stacked on the roof to allow some clear working area on the bedroom level, which made it pretty crowded on the roof!