This is the ongoing saga of our experiences building a beautiful Modern Chateau in Atherton.  Live the process vicariously with us as we do this together in real-time…

Part 4: Framing for Victory!

May 24, 2021

It was the middle of spring, 2021.  Trees were newly swathed in green.  Flowers reached up to greet the day with joy.  Yet it was not only the bountiful flora of America’s richest zip code that was in full bloom. The world’s future most lovely modern chateau was also sprouting from the ground, and the design procurement process was in full swing!

In previous editions of this construction blog, we’ve detailed the land acquisition, design, and foundation.  But now we’re about to go vertical at long last.  How do you actually build the skeleton of a house?

We like our houses made out of wood around here.  That’s because wood flexes nicely in the event of an earthquake, which, for better or for worse, happens in these parts.  Our friends in Hong Kong, with their concrete and tile skyscrapers, wonder why we won’t get blown down in the next hurricane, or how we protect against algae growth.  (Answer: we don’t have hurricanes, and Silicon Valley has a wonderfully temperate non-humid climate).  So this is why, as soon as the concrete is dry, sawdust starts to fill the sky.

We start in the basement with pressure-treated lumber.  It’s a buffer between regular wood and concrete.  It looks greenish and somewhat alien…  because it’s wood with a really rough childhood.  You make this stuff by taking normal wood, sucking the air out of it in a giant tank, flooding the chamber with chemical preservatives, then ramping up the pressure so that the chemicals impregnate the wood.  It becomes like the Incredible Hulk– super-tough, green, and the result of a 1950’s science experiment.  And only Hulk gets to touch the concrete, because “Hulk smash moisture!”

On top of this wonderous substance, interior walls are built.  We coat the inside of the concrete shell with 2x6s (which are like the more common 2x4s, but this project is epic, so we are using the more mighty and beefy version).  A 2x6 really measures 1.5 inches by 5.5 inches… because, as we’ll learn later, we’ve got to keep the framers’ math skills sharp!  Vertical 2x6s are called “studs”, and when they repeat at 16-inches intervals, “stud bays” are formed.  We love stud bays for multiple reasons.  First, its giggle-inducing to say.  Secondly, it feels cool at the rough framing stage to pretend to be a ghost and walk right through the walls.  Most importantly however, this is where we will soon hide the circulatory systems of the house.  Some stud bays are going to look like Grand Central Station soon, crammed full of electrical outlets, switches, thermostats, condensate lines, wastewater pipes, vents, electrical wires, low-voltage wires, and more.

Next, we build a floor by putting joists (think wooden I-beams) across the spans at the détente position between designers (“I want the lights to be centered!”), the structural engineer (“I want extra rigidity so nothing ever moves!”) and the framer (“guys, please just agree.  I gotta get this thing up today”).  Then a layer of plywood goes on top of that, and—voila!—we have a subfloor for the level above. 

But what happens if you want a really big room?  Won’t wood bend if you try to span a huge gap?  You are so correct, clever reader!  This is where structural steel comes in.  When you want an unusually dramatic lower level lounge (why yes, we do!), or when you want two entire walls of the great room to pocket away, leaving the ceiling magically hanging in space with no obvious support (this is precisely our design!  What a coincidence!), then you need to bring in some precisely engineered steel beams.

Did you know that wooden floors are typically thinner (often ¾ inch) than tile or stone slabs (often twice as thick)?  It’s true, and this is why in older houses you might experience an annoying step up when entering the tiled bathroom.  To avoid this, we just make sure that we have a lower subfloor when there will be stone, and higher when wood (note to design team: you better have decided on locations and thicknesses of  specific tile/stone slab/wood flooring by now!).  And to ensure that the stairs feel perfect, each step should have the same vertical rise.  Add all these constraints together across a three story structure, and you can see why the planning has to be quite accurate.  Math for the win! (This is why framers are trained on weird definitions of “2x4” and “2x6”.)* 

The process gets repeated for the main floor, and the upper level, and finally the roof gets framed.  Plywood gets nailed onto the outside of the upper levels, and… sightlines!  Now we can see what it looks like to be washing the dishes and look through the great room towards the pool with the setting sun.  Or to walk into the lower level gym and see the morning light washing the walls in the oversized lightwell.  Things are getting real!

Meanwhile, the design team has been busy finding all the stuff that’ll go inside this lovely shell.  They are driving towards a complete set of interior “elevations” (side-view drawings of all the interior walls).   Why bother with fussy drawings?  Well, some houses don’t bother… and it usually shows as some awkward, “this is the only place it can go” compromise in the field.  Symmetry and balance don’t just happen!  Super-specific drawings are so useful for all the trades.  It makes the entire team realize exactly where the electrical junction box must be placed so that the light switch appears at the perfect place in the built-in cabinetry that will go in later.  Or where to put the shower valve so that it aligns in the exact middle of a piece of tile on the shower wall (in fact, the size of the tile pattern sometimes affects the position of the the shower wall, just to make the finished patterns more pleasing). 

Next Up: Part 5: the Rough Trades!

* Just kidding.  The definitions of 2x4 and 2x6 are just funky.