Ran into a wonky stud bay during a bathroom remodel, took me a whole afternoon just to fix it

I was drywalling my half bath in Portland and hit a stud bay that was framed 17 inches on center instead of 16. Spent 3 hours shimming and cutting filler strips before I could even hang the first sheet. Has anyone else dealt with old framing that's all out of whack like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

sarah_hart1mo ago

Man, that's brutal. 17 inches on center is some real hack work from whoever framed that thing. Three hours of shimming and cutting filler strips sounds like a nightmare, especially when you just want to get the drywall up and move on. I've been there with old houses where nothing is square, and it always feels like the universe is testing your patience. Did you at least get a clean seam in the end, or was it a constant fight until the last screw? Sometimes I wonder if the original framers were just making it up as they went along.

keithbutler1mo ago

A buddy of mine calls this the "rule of unexpected gaps" and it applies way beyond just framing. You ever notice how in life you think something's gonna be a straight line and then you find out it's 17 inches on center? Like planning a weekend trip and suddenly the car needs a new alternator, or you budget for a project and the lumber prices jumped ten percent overnight. People think they got it figured out, but reality always throws in a shim or a filler strip you didn't plan for. The real skill isn't avoiding that stuff, it's knowing how to make it clean when you're done. And yeah, you get a clean seam, but only after you accept that you're gonna be fighting it the whole way. These framers from fifty years ago, they weren't making it up, they just knew something we forgot.

the_eric1mo agoTop Commenter

Is it really that deep though? I mean yeah it sucks when you find out a wall is 17 inches on center, but three hours of shimming sounds like overkill for a couple filler strips. I've built plenty of houses where the framing was off by an inch or two and you just scribe the drywall and move on.