Hi all,
I'm thinking about installing a door myself. I'm not that great at this stuff but I can think things through, can do things carefully, and have seen some of it done before so I think I'll be OK.
Currently I have what we call around here a "bonus room" above my garage. The bonus room is fully finished space. The room is long and rectangular with a narrow flat ceiling section, two short vertical walls, and two sloping roof sections which parallel the exterior roof. There is a staircase leading up to the bonus room. At the top of the stairwell there is an opening through which one passes to enter the bonus room, but there is no door there.
The opening is 38.5" wide. The left side of the opening is 96" tall. The right side is 80" tall. The top is horizontal on the left half and slopes downward at about a 45 degree angle on the right half. Thus the entry would be a 96" x 38.5" rectangle except for the ceiling cuts off a 19" x 16" triangle in the upper right corner.
The walls comprising the left and right side extend into the room about 4 inches horizontally beyond the lip of the top step. The bonus room floor and stairwell are carpeted. There is floor trim on the walls extending from the lip of the top step, in to the room, and around the perimeter of the bonus room.
In general, I want to frame in this opening for as wide a door as I can reasonably fit (on the order of 34"), install the door, drywall, mud, texture, and paint.
I have found this how-to:
https://www.wikihow.com/Frame-a-Door-OpeningQuestions I have so far, I'm sure I'll have more:
1. The how-to link suggests putting down a sole plate. Since I have existing carpet and the entry appears to be square, I'm thinking of skipping this step and instead cutting out the carpet with a utility knife where the remaining left and right segments of the sole plate would be, then just nailing the sole plate segments into place into the subflooring. Is this OK or should I do something different?
2. The light switches for the bonus room happen to be on the left hand side wall of the stairwell wall, such that one can stand on the next-to-the-top step of the staircase facing into the bonus room and use one's left hand to operate the switches easily. I think they are close enough to the interior of the room that I think they might interfere with the left side of the door frame. I'm thinking I can just cut an opening on the back side of that wall segment exactly where the switches are now and just move the box and switches "through" the wall so that they are now inside the room instead of outside. I'll have to patch the hole in the drywall where the switches currently are. And turn off power to that circuit when I'm doing this. Any tips here?
3. I looked at doors at Home Depot today, and they all gave measurements for rough openings of like 36" x 82" for a 34" x 80" door for example. The most conservative route, based on the above how-to link, would be to put a 96" king stud on the left, an 80" king stud with a 45 degree angle on top on the right, then two 80" jack studs inside those. Assuming 1.5" per stud, that would leave me with a 32.5" x 80" opening.
a. If I end up with a 32.5" opening, can I use a door that fits a "rough opening" of 32"? Or is 0.5" too much gap?
b. A less conservative route would be to skip the king studs and just put an 80" jack stud on each side and the top plate on top of that. That would give me a 35.5" rough opening width. I don't think they make doors that size, do they? (I'm not willing to do custom. Given the triangular indent in the upper right, this would mean that the top plate 2 x 4 would have a triangular section that would need to be cut out on the top right. Would this be kosher?
4. I've tried to get a quote from the builder who built my house, but haven't had much success. I think this is more a handyman kind of thing. If I had a handyman do it, I think they would end up costing me about twice the raw materials. I think the door will run me about $150 (I want a solid core door for noise purposes), and the rest of it should be maybe another $250. So I think the handyman route would be about $1000. Does that seem about right? Any advice on doing it myself versus hiring it out?
I'm sure I'll have more. Thanks for any help.