Raincoast Renovation

Brittany

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Building Walls

My memory of the summer we got our new windows is that each weekend we would methodically tear a wall off of a section of our house, re-frame it, and then put it back up, all before Monday morning. I’d watch heads turn and stare as people walked by, probably thinking we were crazy for tearing our house apart while we lived in it!

In our projects, we joke about day-time work and night-time work. With two young kids, our time to work on the house is extremely limited, so anything that is quiet enough to be done at night after they’re in bed is saved for night-time work. On the other hand, anything loud (and involving big holes in the house!) is day-time work, mostly done on weekends when I take the kids while Reid builds. It’s exhausting and far from ideal, but we make it work.

Step one of the wall re-framing was night-time work, removing plaster walls. This had to be done carefully as we assumed there was lead paint behind the newer layers of paint; painful but obviously necessary. Next, the day-time work: we put up temporary framing to support the structure while we took down the existing framing; sawed, measured, and put in new framing; replaced the sheathing; and then either re-installed the old window or boarded up the opening until the new windows would come. Below is what it looked like for the living room window.

Our living room containment area prior to plaster demo. While we were at it, we removed the valences along the top of the wall – a classic ’60’s style that we were happy to be getting rid of. Most of the demo’ing was done at night after the kids were asleep.
Temporary structural support to make sure our house wouldn’t collapse while we re-built the section of wall. Also note the shiplap sheathing with large holes and cracks – definitely not good for energy efficiency and comfort! We found an old wasp’s nest in one stud cavity of this wall.

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Cutting out the sheathing and putting up new framing. We used LVLs for the lintel at this window, beyond what was required by code, in case we decide to vault the ceiling in the future (maybe phase 12, hah!) Yes, this was a lot of effort to move a window over by 2-1/2 feet. And yes, it was worth it.
An outside view of the temporary hole in our house.
Replacing the shiplap sheathing with new plywood sheathing to give us much better seismic resistance for when “the big one” comes! We also put the original window back in temporarily until the new windows arrived.
New window openings framed at the front upper and lower floor.

At the back of the house, we uncovered some rotten wood that had to be replaced. This was to be expected given that we live in a rainforest and 1960’s building science in single family homes was really lacking. Luckily it was just one post, two beams, and a bit of plywood flooring, all parts we could replace without too much extra work.

Rot at a second floor beam.
Rot at a post at the outside corner of the deck.
On to the back – this part of the wall was all windows, which didn’t feel right for the space but made it easy to “demo”. New beams and post to replace the rot. You can also see the temporary structural support in the background so that our kitchen didn’t collapse while we re-built the wall!
New framing taking shape – three large windows and a sliding door.
The re-framed back wall with new window openings boarded up.

For windows where the rough opening was not changing, we prepped them by removing the trim and cladding around the outside of the window, and removing plaster at the inside so that the installers would be able to get them out. We also put a self-adhesive vapour-permeable air and water barrier membrane on the sheathing around the sill (we used Soprema Sopraseal Stick VP) so that the installers could lap the window opening membrane correctly.

To prep for the window replacement where the rough openings weren’t changing we cut back the cladding

By some miracle, we managed to get all of the re-framing complete and rough openings prepped in time for the window installation!

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