Were these 2x4 studs installed wrong? I cut open a couple of walls in my 100+ year old home and found the studs installed this way? was this normal back in the day? I have worked on a lot of old homes but never saw this before.

Another question any ideas on what to do about mounting the prehung door in the new opening since the wall it too thin and it will not sit flush with the wall?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: K Richner,

Hard to tell. But if nothing sagged or moved over that amount of time things should be fine.

It looks like a door was added to a section of wall that started out with no doorway. One stud was cut to make the rough opening. While this could be a problem, most likely removing only one stud is going to be OK. As Sparky points out, if it hasn't been a problem yet, it's not likely to.

Yea I cut the hole to make my bathroom larger I still have to put a header in before I install the door in the photo, I was just stumped when I found the studs installed length wise with the wall.
The other photo was were the old bathroom door was it hit the toilet so it had to go! I am going to close it up but since the studs are all turned the wrong way I am going to have to shim everything to get the drywall to fit flush with the existing wall, since the old studs are true 2x4 and new ones are 3 1/2" x 1/2" I don't want to install the new studs the same way with drywall since the studs will flex and crack the drywall and it might be a code violation.

quote:

Originally posted by Jaybee:
It looks like a door was added to a section of wall that started out with no doorway. One stud was cut to make the rough opening. While this could be a problem, most likely removing only one stud is going to be OK. As Sparky points out, if it hasn't been a problem yet, it's not likely to.

It would be best to reframe that whole section of wall where you want to install that door because right not there's no good way to add the jamb extentions your going to need.
I would use ripped 2X's to do the framing not a bunch of shims.

if house is 70 to 100 yrs studs are commonly a full 2inches x 4inches so prehung doors are out buy and then the issue of lath n plaster ussually thicker than drywall measure thickness of all areas where you are putting doors and if painting which i assume your doing due to the door jamb in picture buy some 1x poplar and make youre jambs and remember hinges seven inches from and generaly 10 inches from bottom of door not floor

The issue is the 2x4 studs are going like this with the walls - - - - - not | | | | | so the walls are very thin even with the lathing and plaster I have no Idea why they built the walls this way I looked further into the house and found it is on all floors I thought it was only the second floor. the molding and baseboards are over and inch thick, this house has become a puzzle I can't believe it has been standing over 100 years there are rumors that it was built in the 1800's because the county doesn't have the build date they only have records going back to 1901

looks like there is drywall there now, not the original lath and plaster. aren't old houses fun to work on?

ideally as joe says, open some more up and reframe to be sure you have cripples and king studs both, as well as a solid header at the right height. you will need to maintain the framing thickness to avoid really ugly wall issues.

at that point, if you still have doorframe sticking out past the wall, you will need to rip a piece of wood the right thickness to even up the frame to the wall, and then trim over that. here's where creativity shows up, and "hail, I cain't figger this out!" can't be hidden. what you are going to have to do is called making "compound molding". there won't be a stock piece to put there.

if you have standard modern trim, you cut a thin piece of oak or pine or whatever is in use to put behind, ripped to the width where it would look naturally part of the molding PAST what you have. in other words, if there are 3 layers apparent in the molding, you are making a wider 4th layer that looks like it belongs.

if you have good ol' fashioned plank trim on there, you could either rabbet down a piece of thicker trim so it fits flush to the door frame while fitting flush to the wall, or build layers of thinner wood up so it looks like it was step-formed.