The Basics of Framing a House

• 1). Start with a firm foundation and a good set of plans. The foundation can be a concrete slab or base flooring installed over joists on a foundation or piers; you want to work on a solid, level platform. You need two types of plans -- a floor plan to show where every wall will stand on the foundation, and a plan for each wall to show locations for doors, windows, vent openings, plumbing pipes and other utilities. An architect will furnish these plans; some building supply stores and other outlets also offer detailed house plans.
  
  
• 2). Build your walls on the floor, then lift them into place. Each wall has a sole or base plate which will rest on the foundation, and a top plate and vertical studs in between at 16-inch intervals. Doors and windows are framed with full studs on the outside, a "header" at the top of the opening between those studs, and "cripple" studs from the header to the floor (or base of the window). Those rough openings will vary with the size of the door or window. Lay your two by fours out in the wall pattern, and make sure corners are square; measure from corner to corner to square them. Then, nail sole and top plates to the studs, using two nails per stud.
  
  
• 3). Make as many wall units as you can manage, or at least one full side. Then raise a wall section into place, brace it temporarily with more two by fours nailed to studs, and to stakes in the ground outside the foundation. Make sure it is straight and plumb. Then fasten it to the foundation with concrete nails, lag bolts or, in some cases, fastening nuts on bolts that were placed before concrete was poured (you must drill holes in the base plates for these bolts). Raise all your outside walls first. Overlap them at the corners, with one wall side placed over the end of the abutting wall. Brace all exterior walls, plumb them, and then nail the corners together.
  
  
• 4). Make and raise all your interior walls. It helps to mark the position of these walls on the slab or floor with a chalk line before you install them. Nail interior walls to the slab or floor, and nail between two by fours where they join. At wall intersections or openings, nail two by four horizontal braces between studs, or put in "stud blocks," which are short sections of two by fours nailed vertically between two close studs.
  
  
• 5). Tie your walls together with two by four wall caps. These boards run across the top plates of the walls, but overlap them, with the cap plate across the joint of the two wall tops. It is important to make sure all walls are straight and plumb before fastening wall caps. Cap all walls -- interior walls to exterior walls, or adjoining interior walls. Every place where two- by four-inch top plates intersect must be covered by a wall cap to hold the two units together. Every wall should have a cap at each end.