I discovered that my last post on this thread was over a month ago. I have been bored far more than once in the time frame... and by my description that means I should have written more. But, before I start... know that my song of the day is "Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon.
Anyway, I've been working construction on my house here in pville for the past two months or so. I have done a LOT of carpentry projects through my life, and in general, I enjoy building/renovating houses. Through the years I have learned my much about what is the norm, and regulations as well as some aspects of code. Knowing all of these facts is truly wonderful when you are working on a house. But, when you are working on an old house... all of these rules by which you structure your projects fall apart.
My first project, which took me through May, was removing and then replacing the plaster ceiling and walls in my parent's bedroom. (it was far past time... the plaster did not need much... encouraging... to let go of the lathe) Anyway, I tore down all the plaster, which was messy, and by no means fun, but it was fine. I was then prepping to install new sheetrock on the surfaces. Normally this means the following steps:
1) clean off the remaining surfaces of lathe so the sheetrock can lay flush
2) mark the rafter locations
3) cut sheetrock to size
4) hold and screw it
Now, all of these go fine (or so one hopes) regardless of the age of the house. Step 2 however... is not so simple. In a modern house, there will be a rafter directly over one of the side walls. Then, there will be a rafter, on center, every 16 inches. Thus, it is very easy to both measure and mark the rafters. This is not however the case in old houses. Not only are the rafters non-equadistantly spaced, but they are not all continuous. I found multiple cases of rafters where 2 2x4's were spliced together to span the distance. Therefore, the distance between any given 2 rafters is not even constant. It's so frustrating!
Long story short... new houses may not have the history of some old houses... but they follow certain rules... and some of those rules are nice if you're a do-it-yourself-renovator. I recommend keeping this in mind before you start your next project.
