Introduction: Expand Your Woody
As before, here's what you'll need:
- Some 3/4" plywood (subflooring grade) - $20-ish a 4x8 sheet
- Some 2x4s (or 2x6 or 2x8) for framing and such - $2-ish per 8'
- 2" (or so) wood/drywall screws
- 3/8" t-nuts (about 70 per sheet of plywood) - $0.15-ish a piece for galvinized
- 3/8" hex cap bolts
- Drill, hammer, saw
- Something soft to work as a crash-pad
- Beer...lots of beer
Step 1: Framing
Some things you might want for the framing:
- Nails and a hammer (we had a pneumatic nail gun - yay)
- Nail-plates - good for joining 2x4s
- Skillsaw or a handsaw and a lot of patience
- Level
- Tape measure, square
In the photos you can see how we framed out the invert. wall, extended the crack machine into the ceiling, and added an angled box to the roof. The angled box serves two purposes - it adds a great feature and it avoids the careful task of moving a gas line.
Step 2: Sheathing
In this step, you'll prepare the plywood with t-nuts and then install it on the frame. As before, we're using 70 t-nuts per sheet of plywood placed in a uniform but random pattern. We are careful not to put t-nuts where the studs are, and put fewer near the bottom where foot jibs are usually screw-on.
Attaching the plywood is where the 2" screws come in. One screw every foot-or-two is about right. For the horizontal portion of the ceiling we were able to screw directly to the rafters.
Lifting heavy sheets into position can be a bit tricky and you will be rewarded by your resourcefulness. We used a truck jack and a ladder to position one roof sheet, the rest got positioned with a little bit of elbow grease and sometimes a couple shims.
Step 3: Finishing Touches
- Entreprise Holds - A nice small company in Bend, Oregon with cheap holds. The red holds you can see in the picture are theirs - the Chain Reaction set.
- Metolius - Another company based in Bend Oregon, which is quite a bit bigger. They have a line of wood holds (made in Korea...) which are pretty cheap and are okay. The laquered finish is slippery but gets a little better with use (and chalk). They have some nice plastic holds too, but they are expensive. We have some of each.
- You - Make your own damn holds! See here and here.
Used mattresses make pretty good crash-pads.
You might want to install some lighting. We had to remove one fixture and install another one.
A full bar and a stereo are also nice additions.