Framing around Logan County, Kentucky

Nobody sees framing once a job is done, but everything that comes after it shows whether it was right. Drywall cracks at the corners when a wall is out of plumb. Doors bind in an opening that is out of square. Cabinets and counters will not sit flat on a floor that dips. Taking the time to get the frame straight is what keeps the finished room looking finished.

A new wall goes up stud by stud on a plate fastened to the floor and the ceiling. A new opening in an existing wall, for a door or a window, needs a header across the top sized for what the wall above it carries. Luke's photos show framing going into a new door opening cut through a brick wall.

Before any wall comes out, the first question is whether it holds up the house. Luke looks at what sits on top of a wall before saying what can be done with it.

A soft spot in a floor usually means the subfloor under it got wet at some point, often near a tub, a toilet, a washer or an outside door. One of Luke's photos is a room stripped down to new plywood subfloor, with the old wallboard cut out and piled on the floor.

The fix is to cut out the bad section back to the joists, check the joists themselves, and put new subfloor down glued and screwed so it does not squeak later.

Some of the framing in Luke's photos is outside: a deck under a covered roof looking over a field, and a small white shed with a raised deck on top and a light by its door. Small builds like those are framing from the ground up, posts, beams, walls and roof.