Interior Wall Frames & Bathroom Tiles!
Wall framing on the interior of a shipping container is a bit tricky and definitely really fiddly work! Used shipping containers have got knocks and dents in them so if you want your framing to be straight then there’s both packing out to do and cutting out to do! Emily and I have spent the past week and a half cutting the timbers to fit, sanding in grooves where there are bumps in the container and using packers where there are dents in the container! This prep work to get the wall frames straight is taking longer than expected but that’s ok, it’ll make the cladding job so much easier and of course give us straight walls!
I guess there are so many ways to do this job, after considering a few options we decided to cut all the timbers to size and lay them out to make sure they were all going to fit, we then pre drilled a countersunk hole into every spot on the timbers that a screw would be going into so that none of the screw tops would stick out past the timber…we used a 16mm spade bit to drill those holes…about half way through the timber. We used 12-14 x 50mm Hex Head Metal Tek Screws to fasten the timber frames directly into the metal container walls. Drilling through the metal is hard! Especially the higher frames when you are up on a ladder and drilling in above your head! We tried to pre drill holes in the metal and even that was hard to do! Luckily for us we were doing this job while the builders were there doing the bathroom tiling and the girls gave us a bit of advice on drilling through metal and leant us a step drill bit 4-12mm. This worked absolutely fantastically to pre drill through the metal and made the job so much easier! We bought one the next day to use on the rest of the walls! As each timber frame went up, before we screwed it in we’d hold it up and mark out what areas needed to be sanded back to allow for any inward bumps in the container, I sanded the grooves out with a 60 grit flap disc on the grinder, and then as we were screwing the frames on any parts of the timber that didn’t meet the wall because of a dent in the container we popped in a wooden packer…literally just little off cuts of timber…to make everything fit in nice and snug! Yep it was fiddly and annoying but the end result on the front wall was pretty good, It’s all spirit level straight and ready to be insulated and clad!
You can see in the photos I have put up I have framed right at the top, right at the bottom, in the middle on the bedroom walls and below and above the windows and above the door. I have also put in small framing blocks on either side of the door including a block for where the front light switch will go, these little blocks on the sides of the door have been fixed in with liquid nails, all of the other timber was screwed and then silicone put into the screw holes to seal them.
I have gone with what I considered minimal framing so I could maximise my space for insulation! And the cladding that is going on will have enough nailing points to keep it on straight and strong.
The timber I have used is 3.6m lengths 70 x 35mm Pine Timber Framing. The front walls took 12 lengths of 3.6m timbers and the bedrooms together took 9 lengths of 3.6m timbers so all together about 75m of framing timber for these frames. The bathroom took 16 lengths…so 37 lengths used all together for all of the interior framing! The metal screws that we used for the framing, the box came with 250 screws and we have used nearly all of them!
Next job was to grind off all of the screws that went through the metal onto the outside of the container! And then of course seal up the area with a polyurethane silicone! The exterior of may Tiny House is looking a lot like patchwork at the moment, I had patched up all of the old holes after tearing down the old frame and now I’m patching over the new screws!
I’m super happy that we got the front wall framing right…but we only got that right because we first made some mistakes with the bedroom side and back wall frames which is what made us re think how to do the front! I considered taking the bedroom sides and back frames down and I did take the interior side down in one room and did it again to get it straight, it needed packing and sanding to make it fit in right! The others are up and screwed in really well so they are a strong base for walls to be put up…but they are not straight! So we have decided to use plastic packers, yep, you can buy from Bunnings boxes of assorted sized plastic packers, and nail them in on the inside of the frame so they sit between the frame and the cladding! I’ve got string line, a huge box of plastic packers and a few spirit levels and I’m crossing my fingers that it will work! That’s the plan and it is this weeks job so I will let you know how it goes!
While we have been working on the framing this week the builders have been working in the bathroom with the second coat of waterproofing and they have started the tiling! The floor tiles are in and the wall tiles up to the fancy decorative tile are in!
I’ve added in photos again this week of the products I used and have talked about on this post! And for those who have emailed me asking about what tools we have needed to be able to do the jobs we have done I have also added in a few pics to show you what we have used and I will continue to put up pics of things like drill bits and hand tools as we go along!
Heaps to come so keep watching!
Thanks for reading!
Jen 🏡
