Interior wall question

[scgargoyle]

I'm starting to get a design together, at least in my head. I'm planning a central timber frame great room, with a wing on one side for the kitchen, and the other side for bedrooms. The wings will be stick built to cut costs. The gable end of the great room will face the view (in back). I'd like to build another bent on the front for a porch. My question is about the broadwalls, which will in effect be interior walls. How do I frame in and mount drywall? Should I put the studs inside the timbers, reducing the depth of the exposed posts, or does that look dumb? Or make the studwalls on the outside of the timbers, leaving full exposure of the posts, but stealing space from the adjacent room? I haven't seen much literature on hybrid construction like this. Thanks!

[Jayson]

Try looking at Benson's book or Fine Homebuilding's book. The FH is called Timber Frame Homes. It has several example's of infill and panel installation. I'd have to say preference is the final answer. I can't think of the Benson title.
     When you say interior wall do you mean that the porch will be enclosed and heated? From what I read you are saying this is the wall that seperates the porch from the great room, right?

[Raphael]

I think he means the Eve walls which divide the Kitchen and Bedrooms from the great room.
 
I've looked at a few hybrid approaches:

  The first (primarily for interior walls) is to reference the knee braces in 4" and anchor the wall studs under the TF flush with the outside face so you can slide ½" sheet rock between the knee braces and the studs.  This way you'll see the braces and ~half of the posts in the great room, sort of a modified infill look.  The braces could be positioned so they are also half buried in the wall but that adds a lot of work to the stick frame.

  The other option(s) are to fur out ½" off the frame like some do when installing SIPs or reference the knee braces in ½" and put a ½" rabbet on the timbers to recieve sheet rock.  Your wall studs are set flush against the outside of the TF (or the furring strips) which makes wiring and plumbing penetrations simpler if they need to pass through to the second floor in these walls and will expose the entire frame in your great room.  Finishing the sheet rock is easier with this sort of approach.  I kinda like the rabbet concept as the stick frame can be solidly locked to the timbers without all that extra messing around with extra material.

  A lot depends on the foot print, roof and eye line(s) you are going for and if you intend to use SIPs or SSPs at all.

[scgargoyle]

Raphael- That sounds like a good approach. Yes, I do mean the eave walls. The gable ends will likely be SIP's. I've been looking at pictures, and I don't like having full-depth beams on the gable ends, and 1/2 depth on the eave walls. To me, it looks better if they are all the same. I guess I'll have to give up the 4" or so in the stick-built wings. The rabbet addresses the problem of hanging the drywall, and having solid stud connection. Thanks!

[Jim_Rogers]

The only thing that I've ever heard said about infilling under timbers with stud construction is that there is two different drying rates. The studs being smaller will dry out and shrink sooner. And this could open up a gap between the top of the stud wall and the timbers, because the sheet rock is attached to the studs and plate of this stud wall.
I haven't personally seen this happen, but it seemed to make sense to me.
If you can live with this then ok, but having the sheet rock behind the post could be a better option.
Now about shimming out for the sheet rock if this is your choice. I've been told, and again I haven't seen this, but the shim should be 5/8" plywood planed down to a full 1/2". You just can't use 1/2" plywood as the sheets are not a full 1/2" thick, they are thinner. And if you use 1/2" plywood you'll have trouble sliding the sheet rock in.
If you use 5/8" plywood, then slip in the sheet rock you'll have a 1/8" gap there to begin with.
Now if you're ok with that, then ok.
But some people don't want this gap at all due to air flow, moisture barrier and things like that.

Most interior walls run beside bents so that they can be used for wire and plumbing chases.
I hope this helps.
Jim Rogers

[Don P]

I used 5/8 throughout the frame we've been on, we discussed the gap and decided it didn't offend anyone. Inspector passed the frame last week, drywallers start next. I stepped into the bedrooms with the stick framing and left full timber showing in the greatroom. I'm having the rockers stop at the bottoms of ceiling joists in the BR and kitchen. I stepped 1/2 in in from the framing and dado'ed a 1/4" deep x 3/4" wide slot in the joist sides to slip a trim board between joists. A bead or cove will run under the joists and those fill boards. I probably just made that clear as mud   : .

I've vacumed at least a gallon of those "ladybug" beetles out of the 5/8 sheetrock gap against the sips. I put extra studs where the drywallers need nailer on each side of posts. Aside from nailing up and down in several locations I blocked behind posts and nailed thru the shim. You could do that anywhere you want to attach the wall to the post. The sips are screwed thru the shim into the posts

[scgargoyle]

5/8" shim sounds like a good idea to me. The 1/8" gap would make it easier to paint for one thing.

[Jim_Rogers]

As far as painting, mudding the sheet rock and staining the timbers what I've seen done is to wrap the timbers with plastic from the outside around the timber and overlap on the inside. Then tapped together to encase the timber. Do the mudding and sanding and painting then undo the plastic and tap it off to the sheet rock. Then stain the timbers if wanted or needed.
After staining is done trim the plastic off at the back edge of the timber with an utility knife real close to that the plastic doesn't show....
This will help prevent the painting getting on the timbers and the staining getting on the sheet rock.
You can use this system on wall vertical timbers and ceiling timbers as well.

Good luck with your project.

Jim Rogers

[Jayson]

Man I love this place. I like 5/8" too. To me seems like it's much easier to do all the oiling or staining on the ground and plan on touch up. This will of coarse depend on the finish, some are very unforgiving. I would try to stay away from those though. Year after year you will be moving things(furniture and stuff)and you will probably have totouch things up, so I would experiment and research finishes. I have seen the frame erected,sheetrock applied to frame and then the skin applied, whether it be sips or a larson truss(a sort of site built panel illustrated in Benson's book). This being an interior wall that is not carrying a load it could be any kind of infill (bricks,slate,some of those acoustic panels that allow diffused light to pass through without the noise,maybe a wattle without the daub(looks like woven wood, well that's what it is)cob or even some crazy hippie beads HaHa. Some kind of dry stacked stone would be cool too. Sorry, did not mean to go off there, but I think you should let your mind run wild in the planning phase. I so often hear owners of new homes say"yeah we would do it this way next time". Have fun. If you do the sheetrock thing you might be able to place a mock nailer the reduce the joints you have to finish. If you have a 8' wall(vertically) you could place a nailer 4' from the floor and cover that seam.There's my 2 cents.

[Don P]

One other idea we kicked around was using the strech sheets of drywall from the 8' level down and making a "wainscotting" by attaching 1/4" oak ply to the sips on the lower part of the wall to form the "panels". Then framing and chairrailing over that with solid wood up to the drywall.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

sc,

Building a hybrid makes a lot of sense.  I am now (like, today!) in the process of putting bathrooms inside of my timberframe (not a hybrid), and the posts and beams are more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to plumbing.  The vents for the plumbing are the biggest issue, then come the drains (especially for the toilets), then then water supply lines (which seem trivial in comparison).  You just about have to hold the interior walls of bathrooms off to the sides of the beams - don't center them.  (I am learning the hard way!)

As a rule, when I laid out my frame, I used 3" thick braces and held them to one side or the other of 8" and 10" posts and beams.  This let me build 4" thick walls next to the 3" thick braces, and still show 1" or 3" of timber on the other side of the wall.  In other words, half timbers are visible in all interior rooms, but the braces are only visible on one side of the wall.  Seemed like a great idea at the time, but it does complicate plumbing and electrical and drywall.  (and did I mention that I have to rip store bought 2x4's down to 3" in order to build a 4" wall - uggh - what a stupid move on my part).  I would have probably been better off to hold the walls all the way to one side or the other of the timbers.  (since aesthetically, it's a toss-up)

As concerns exterior walls (or interior walls with braces), definitely use 5/8" shims (or bigger) for slipping 1/2" drywall in behind timbers.  I used 5/8" (not 19/32") plywood shims, but the resulting gap was sometimes only 3/8" due to bowed timbers, bowed sips, bowed braces, or some other unexplainable (but unavoidable) weirdness.  We ended up sanding down the back sides of some of the drywall to get it to fit, and I also kept some spare 3/8" drywall handy where the task was just too impossible with 1/2" drywall. (and I did use 5/8" plywood for shims!!!)

What I'm learning (but still not able to practice!) is... once you deviate from stick framing by choosing a timber frame, start veering (hard) back toward "convention" if you want to finish within a decade of starting. 

-Thomas

[Joel Eisner]

Oh Thomas.....

Don't worry about the dry wall.  If it fits behind the timber slide it.  If it does not fit behind the timber cut it and do a butt joint against the post or te brace.  I found the saving grace is old style (non-blue) wide masking tape.  I placed it on timbers before mudding and often slipped it between the drywall and timber.  After mudding and painting you can go back with a sharp razor knife and and cut right at the corner and it leaves a clean transition between the drywall and timber.  What is nice is that the tape is similar color to the timber and a small amount of residual tape will not show.

Joel

[Raphael]

  Most of my partition walls got framed with at least one piece of sheet rock already in place (sandwiched between the sticks and timbers).  Sort of the scottish approach to shims:


  The sheet rock in the left side of this picture tipped up against the back side of the second floor joist as a unit with the top plate and a couple of studs.

  Here's a rather extreme example: