Home Improvement Today?

Hey, been awhile since I've posted on this thread but I used to contribute frequently a few years ago living in Arizona and renovating houses. Since then had a baby, moved to PA and have been renovating the 'forever home'. Large single family home in the suburbs, built in 1997. Have done a ton of work since buying in March 21. Current project is construction of a mudroom. I'm looking for some input on this as i start the project. We have a large 3 car garage attached to the house. Though it's the volume of a 3 car garage, there are only 2 doors, leaving a very large storage area on one side where the entrance to the house is. You enter the house into a tight laundry room and then the kitchen/family room. We want to build a mudroom with laundry in it, in part of the extra space in the garage. Because it only has two doors, it's listed as a 2 car garage + storage in public records & MLS, so not concerned about 'downgrading' the car capacity of the garage. With this alteration we can still easily fit my Tacoma and my wife's Subaru Ascent in the garage, along with all of my tools.

My questions are mostly around the construction framing of the room itself. I am planning to build the room at the height of the existing laundry room floor. That means that I will have to elevate the floor about 2 feet inside of the garage. I was planning to essentially build a deck on top of the garage floor attached to the home on two walls and attached to the existing garage ceiling. As I was researching this, i came across this person's blog series detailing essentially the exact thing I'm planning to do. My door is in the same location as theirs and I will be building a similar size and function room.

To the pros and semi-pros who are kind enough to grace this forum with their input on a regular basis, do you see anything wrong with the way they went about this project? Anything you'd recommend I alter while constructing something very similar? Mine will be much lower to the garage floor and I don't think I'll get any storage out of the underside of it, so I plan on finishing to the floor with drywall. Are 6x6 necessary or would I be ok with 4x4s?

https://www.remodelandolacasa.com/2020/06/diy-garage-platform.html

 

good call. I had a grill get pushed across my deck during a wind storm, lost a few knobs. Since then I strapped it to the railing during any future storms.

 

semi-pro here… just did a similar permitted project for friends. Nothing wrong with the plan.. however the execution presented in that link is suspect..

1. the garage has to be air sealed (car exhaust) and fire rated from the house (the reason for finished drywall and that steel door). If you wish to keep the space under the floor for storage you will need to dry wall (fire rate) the underside of that floor. If not, drywall all the way down to the slab on the garage side and caulk it. That operable window in that location is suspect as well.

2. Relocated or new steel door with an automatic closer between garage and new laundry room.

the links framing is suspect at the posts. There needs to be bearing. Can’t rely on just the carriage bolts for bearing. I would have doubled the rim joist where floor joists intersect.
Hope that helps. Note I said semi-pro. Others ideas might be better

CD

 

Its actually fallen off twice, once of those times tipped over completely. We get some pretty good winds that side of the house. Grill is pretty screwed up from those two events, but still works so I gotta keep it around a little bit

 

Thanks! I won’t be using the underside for storage and I won’t be adding a window. Unlike that post I’ll be moving my washer/dryer to that room so i do want to make sure it’s structurally as solid as possible. I’m have extensive renovation experience but not a lot of framing expertise. I initially thought I should be building this like a deck on a slab. Would It be better to support the floor framing from underneath vs carriage bolting through posts? There is only going to be about 5.5” beneath the floor framing and the concrete floor. I’ve seen all sorts of products that screw and adjust to hold up framing when you’re building an outdoor deck on top of an existing slab. Could I use something like that?

 

If you paln on going to the garage floor anyway just frame it off the garage floor. Use PT material and 1/8" foam roll for the bottom plates. From there just use 2x8 ledgers and joists to create the floor. It's balloon framed so you'll have to put fire blocking in at the top of ledger if it's over ten feet from floor to lid. Using posts you place all the weight of the room onto that small area. Usually a post that's meant to carry a load will have a big ass footing under it. Your slab does not. That't not to say that the 6" concrete slab won't hold that load. It's only meant to point out that if you had this room drawn up by a structural engineer you would have to cut at least an 18x18 hole in the concrete then pour proper footings.

 

So I’ve got 2x8s for the ledgers/joists. I guess what I’m having trouble with is what does the structure look like underneath that to hold up the floor deck? 10’ from concrete floor or 10’ from new floor? What would I have to do?

 

honestly, i don't like most of what they did. no cross-bracing to each post, the posts are floating on the concrete, and there's no vapor barrier/separation between the wood and the concrete. it appears that they properly used treated 6x6, but the wording never mentions it.



if it where me, i'd do a standard 2x4 treated sill plate laid on top of a standard vapor barrier as a base, with the typical ramset/tapcons to secure the sillplate to the concrete. from there, i'd build up to the appropriate level using standard 2x4's/plywood so the 2x10's would equal out to the height needed. then it's just standard construction techniques.

 

The whole reason to balloon frame it then ledger is because the garage floor will be pitched at least 1/4" per foot. Doing it with a traditional rim joist set-up means you're gonna have to shim the bottom plates. If it's a 10' run that's a 2 1/2" shim. lol

 

I was there from '86-'91. I've heard that oceanside is a fancy/expensive place to live these days. It wasn't so nice back then.

Great idea. I lost my grill off of the deck in August after a nasty T-storm/unconfirmed 'nader went through the area. The wind force broke the rubber bungee that had the grill anchored to the deck. I came home from work and found the grill smashed against the neighbors fence, it got flung about 20 feet from the deck, 8 feet off the ground. I'm still using it but it's in bad shape, visually.

 

i'm trying to remember how this was done at a job i was on about a year ago. they did exactly this.

i want to say the carpenters took 2x12's for the end plates and ripped them down to match the pitch of the garage floor.

 

From the concrete floor. Just google balloon frame construction and you'll get the idea. There's two ways to balloon frame. The old way was to nail the joists directly to the side of the stud. The new way is to use 2x ledgers that get SDS screws into the studs. Then joist hangers off the ledger for the floor joists. If you do it the new way you just need to block out at subfloor level. Google ledgered floor joist and that should give you the ledger side of it.

 

That's one way to accomplish it. Sleepers would certainly be better then shims. For the average DIY homeowner it's a pretty big ask to get correct. If it was my house I'd balloon it.

 

We had these blinds installed shortly after we moved into the house 11 years ago and while I love them in concept, they haven't held up well.



They are sagging in places and not in others and just doesn't look good.





So tonight I started taking them down.

So many brackets.



So many holes.



The wall plugs have all been removed and filled. I'll fling some paint on them tomorrow then hopefully get the new rod and curtains up.

Then I can start on the adjacent window.

 

Having trouble finding balloon framing specifics for the floor support. Am i notching out a 2x10 section of the top of a 4x4 for the 2x10 to rest on and bolting it in place?

 

This should help.


https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/framing/floor-framing-2

 

Thanks. What’s the best way to layout this floor? The door opening where the pocket door is going is the original door to the garage from the house. That wall is where the 2x10 picture above is from. The picture attached here is The 22” bump out in the upper left which is a cosmetic soffit for HVAC and crudely framed with 2x4s. The other existing house wall that’s 105” is also showing and just framed off that concrete foundation. I thought that I would put another 2x10 against the existing 2x10 with a PT 2x4 on its side underneath it resting on the concrete foundation wall (matching what is there on the house side so my floor would be even coming into the new room. The floor joists would be hung from there. But Do I have to do three different sections of flooring to create the floor shape? I attached a crude sketch of the 3 sections. I turned the joists for section one because I don’t have any real support in that 22” corner pictured.

thanks. You guys rock.

 

I'd run them E/W then pull layout from the S side. If you level over from the bottom of the existing entry door to the W wall how far is that mark from the stem wall(the concrete)?

Edit: All directions are using N as the existing entry door. Sorry, habit. lol

 

Was hoping to run that right section N/S to make plumbing and gas routing easy as washer/dryer will be located there. Here are the detailed dimensions. That NW corner soffit next to the existing door is not something I would hang any structure off of.