Smart Framing & Layout: A Detailed Look at a Custom Home's Second Floor

In this video, Steven Baczek from the Steven Baczek Architect YouTube channel takes viewers on a detailed second-floor walkthrough of a custom home project built by Shoreline Builders. Steve covers design decisions around natural light, bedroom suite layouts, accessible living accommodations, and the home's innovative mechanical chase system built into the roof trusses. He also discusses the use of Builder's First Source's Ready Frame pre-cut framing package and its real-world impact on job site efficiency, waste reduction, and framing crew productivity.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the second floor

Hey, Steven Baczek Architect. I'm out here at one of our projects with Shoreline Builders. If you haven't already seen it, go check out — we did an exterior walk, we did a first-floor walk, and now I'm on the stairs. So you know what that means: I am headed upstairs for a second-floor walk. I'll see you at the top of the stairs and we'll take the tour.

Natural light and window design in the stairwell

All right, so we've made our way up to the second floor. One of the things I wanted to point out — and this is kind of a pet peeve for Steve — this is an interior stairwell, but we had the opportunity to put a window in. I love it when we get some natural light. A couple of things are at play here. One, coming up the stairs, I get some natural light, and I don't have to turn a light on in the middle of the day. Two, as I go down the stairs, I can look outside — I can see what the weather's like. Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is it light? Is it dark?

The other thing to point out: that stairwell window is probably about two feet by four feet. When we come into this room here, on the other side, we have another two-foot by four-foot window, and then we have the picture window, so we have those two flanking windows. From the exterior, we have a little desk area there and a little living room area here, and from the outside it has that nice, balanced symmetry.

The sister's bedroom suite

So we walked upstairs and turned left. This is a bedroom suite — specifically a suite for the sister of the husband. Four people are going to live in this house: husband and wife, the sister of the husband, and the brother of the husband. The brother is in a wheelchair full-time, and the sister also helps with his care. So she has what I would call an extended suite.

We're standing in the bedroom here. Bed wall there, a window there, a window on the other side. We have a walk-in closet and a bathroom — we can certainly tour those. But on this side, notice we have a couple of piers here. This extended section is basically her living room. Yes, there's a nice living room downstairs, but like all of us, there are probably times when you want to go up and read a book, be by yourself, or maybe they're watching football downstairs, and you want to go upstairs and watch the news. This gives her the opportunity to come up here, do her own thing, and live comfortably in her suite.

We have that beautiful view out the south side there. We have a couple of operable windows that meet our egress requirements and some fixed windows on this side of the bedroom. And here is her bathroom — we'll have a nice, sizable vanity, probably about four feet, a toilet, and then a walk-in shower. Over here is the walk-in closet. It'll have closet space going down that side, then turning the corner. It also provides access into our mechanical chase as well as the attic above.

The mechanical chase system

We can actually come in and take a look. You can see here this gets us access into the chase, and then we have this secondary opening — it's about a 28-inch curb around there — that takes you up into the upper attic.

So what's going on here? This space to my left is a mechanical room. The mechanical room has connections to this chase. If we come over here, it's probably easiest seen right here. We have this 18-inch chase that we built into the trusses. This runs the length of the second floor. The mechanical room connects to it, so we'll put an upflow unit in the mechanical room, and that upflow unit and return will go up here, and then this chase feeds basically all of the rooms on the second floor.

You can call it whatever you want — in this case, I call it a mechanical chase. You could also call it an inverted crawl space, since it's that 18-inch space. All of the equipment goes up there: our ERV ductwork, our HVAC heating and air conditioning ductwork. And you can see it has all been air-sealed using the ZIP system. The ZIP system comes down, we switch to the Siga Majrex system, which folds up and simply gets taped off. Jim's crew is just doing a beautiful job.

Our Siga Majrex, our 2x4s here — these are on 16-inch centers because the trusses are on 24-inch centers. We're going to put probably around 22 to 23 inches of insulation above that. Yes, thousands of pounds of blown-in insulation on the top side. We can reduce that span by 30% — from 24 inches down to 16 inches — by putting these 2x4s in. And then we have an inch-and-a-half space where we can put our LED recessed cans and run wires inside of there. If we need a wire to go across, we can simply push it up and run it across on the inside of the membrane.

The membrane is our air barrier. On the wall outside, our ZIP system sheathing is our air barrier. We then put a Siga Majvest up, and then the Majrex gets taped to it. You can see the Majvest there on the underside — that flap just folds up, and the Majrex simply tapes to it. So we have ZIP-R sheathing to Majvest, Majvest to Majrex, and Majrex runs across to the ZIP system. We've maintained air barrier continuity throughout that entire assembly.

Also notice our pocket headers here. When we go to insulate our walls with blown-in insulation, they'll just net these. You can see the backside — they're on the flat, just to help catch the drywall and provide backing for window treatments if needed.

Guest bedroom suite and the mechanical room

Heading down the hall, this is the mechanical room I spoke of. Notice the mechanical chase comes over to almost half of the ceiling. We can certainly cut out a 2x4 and get a return trunk and a supply trunk up into that mechanical chase.

Coming in here, this is the guest bedroom suite. We have a walk-in closet there and the bedroom proper here. We can use either wall as the bed wall. And then in here we have a nice little shower, a toilet space, and probably about a four or four-and-a-half-foot vanity. So a nice en suite bathroom for guests. Again, all of our pocket headers up here as well.

Ready Frame pre-cut framing package

The one thing I want to point out — if you're not familiar with it — on this project, we used BFS, Builder's First Source. We used their Ready Frame package. The Ready Frame package means all of the studs and plates were cut in a factory. They are digitally printed to show exactly where all of the studs go, so everything is laid out for you. The top plate is labeled "TP," it tells you which one it is and when it was made. Walk around and you'll see it on all of them — "Header," "2P9" — and it tells you the location of each piece. It all gets printed.

I've posted a bunch about this, and a lot of builders are saying, "Well, you're taking the craftsmanship away from the framer." Look — all we've done is had the studs and the frame cut remotely and delivered here. I love framers. I think they are craftsmen. But having the frame cut somewhere else, as opposed to on-site, I don't necessarily think that takes craftsmanship away from the framer. You can certainly comment below.

Jim liked it, and Taylor — the owners of Shoreline Builders — they liked it. We asked Ryan, the owner of the framing company, and he absolutely loved it. He came here with two guys instead of a crew of five, and he said it took them less time than a crew of five would have taken to cut and frame it on site. The other thing to notice is there is little to no sawdust, except for what's generated by the plumber or mechanical guys for cutting. It really lends itself to a nice, clean job site. And for those wondering whether the frame was cut properly, when you talk to Ryan, he said everything pretty much laid out spot-on. There was nothing really to worry about.

Wrapping up and what's next

Anyway, I'll leave the decision up to you. But I will tell you, we're about to demo and start a new project with Shoreline Builders and the same framer. And not only are we doing the Ready Frame wall package — they're also going to do the Ready Frame cut roof package on that project too. So stay tuned for that.

Second-floor tour done here at our project with Shoreline Builders — mechanical chase, all the cool stuff. If you're a subscriber, thank you very much. I appreciate you joining in. Drop a comment, be respectful, and I'll do my best to answer. If you're not a subscriber, smash that subscribe button. Go tell your friends, "Hey, this guy actually cares about mechanical coordination in architectural design — he builds his trusses to provide space for the mechanical guys."

That's it. Second floor tour—finished. We're going to head down to the basement and complete the tour of the house. I'm Steven Baczek Architect. Until next time: long live our buildings.