Hello,I am going to try to put a small partition wall ,between my dining(pc) area and my kitchen the wall will only need to be 160cm or
5'3" long in old money. I will have to cut away a little of the skirting board, but how do I check where in the ceiling I can secure the frame. Also I will not need to put any lights or shelves on this partition,how far apart should I put the uprights for attaching plasterboard?I have checked for any mains wiring or piping Honest!
Regards
Helen Howard
Actually, you probably don't need to attach the frame at the top at all.
I would be strongly tempted to go at this in the following manner
Take a piece of stud and screw to the floor.
Take another piece and cut to fit across the celing.
Cut two more pieces for the end verticals.About 3mm too long
Puts a generous amount of 'no more nails' on the ceiling bit, and then whack the vertical bits in to jam it against the ceiling: Use a level to get them vertical., then run screws in at an angle o hold them there. In fact I am not sure I would screw the verticals to the walls either - more no more nails probably.
Now have a beer and wait a day for the glue to dry off..part 1 is complete.
Infill with studs at 400mm centers and noggins at whatever height suits the plasterboard joins, or somewhere about halfway up.
Use screws and a leccy driver rather than nails..it puts less stress in things. Drive in at any angle you like, and use two screws at different angles. If you are really keen use up the no more nails as well. I prefer to use 6x3 timber for studwork, but 4x2 is OK, and if pushed even 2x2. If the thing is going to have stuff hung on it, consider MDF or ply as an alternative to plasterboard, or behind the plasterboard.
In fact since its so small, why not do that anyway? use 2x2 studwork and plate it both sides with 15mm MDF and then stick plasterboard over that for the skim. Much stronger wall in the end.
Anyone who comes after you and wants it out will love you, cos one really big whack of a sledge hammer will probably knock the whole thing down in one go.
You want to make an head the size of the wall opening; a cill the size of the wall opening less the 1" or so each side taken up by the skirting which you should leave intact. (YMMV.)
These are made of the same stuff as the studding which can be 2 x 2 inch rough sawn timber but there is nothing to stop you using planed timber from B&Q or wherever.
If you use the planed stuff you can get away with cladding one side only and leaving the other open to use as a finished effect or to act as a base for some future shelving.
The studs (the vertical pieces) need to be either 400 or 600 millimetres apart to take plasterboard. But if you use ply or matchboard (tongue and groove for example) they can be any division you like.
Notch out the bottom of the two outer studs -to go around the skirting board. Screw or nail the lot together with 2 four inch nails or 1 three and an half inch screw at each joint.
Put it in place to see if it fits and that it is square (or suitably out of square enough to fit straight in. It can be a real pain to find all your hard work has to be undone because the walls are not plumb or something.)
If you are going to clad one side only, paint the side going against the studding and fix in place (again allowing the notches for the skirting.) If you make the frame about quarter of an inch undersized you can then offer it up and fix with wedges (or packers) and some more screws.
You may need help to lift it into place. It is a lot quicker to do it like that than make it all up in situ one piece at a time. But you need to have the room to put it together.
A couple of strips of architrave down each side will mask the gaps and give it a nicer finish. See if you can match it to the skirting.
Do you know which way the ceiling joists run? If they run at right angles to your new wall, you can screw through the top frame member and existing ceiling straight into the joists. If they are parallel with the new wall - unless the wall is directly under a joist - you'll have to insert some noggins between the joists, and screw into them. This will involve taking some upstairs floorboards up to get at the joists.
Either way, you'll need a joist finder (small electronic device) to find where the joists are.
For a wall of that length, I would use an upright each end, and two intermediate uprights - equally spaced. Used 6' x 3' plasterboard with the long axis horizontal. For an average modern house ceiling height, you'll need two and a half boards each side - 5 in all. Put noggins between the uprights to coincide with the board joints.
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