in this video I will provide you with a few ideas for actually framing the loft and we'll start with a simple one here that I'm already drawn and this one here will require a ledger with some joists that would attach to hangers and it's not uncommon for an engineer to require lag bolts so let's say it you might need a four inch lag bolt that would give you an inch and a half plus two inches into the framing stud and I would imagine that they would be at least 5/16 possibly 3/8 bolts but again this is just speculation I'm not an engineer and another method for attaching the ledger would be using 16 D nails three or four might be required for each stud and another view of it there and this drawing here has a single joist on the end the next one will have a larger joist now you can actually use a double joist here or a beam here's the beam that I'm talking abouts not uncommon to have something like this at the edge of a floor and this would give you some more strength also if you were going to use it for a to connect a stairway to so this one will have a post underneath it 4 by 4 if you're going to use a 4 a 4 by 12 beam something like that you might need a 6 by 12 it might need a bigger post in here and don't forget that you might actually need a footing underneath this and you'll see more of that in the next section something like this I don't know if it would require a footing or not it would depend upon the well width of your existing footing kind of a thing but you can just see here where the beam is sandwiched in between two framing studs and the ledger just simply butts up against there and then you could just tell nail this into the beam and then of course nail right into the framing stud also get a nice connection now I wanted to show you some mid span blocks a lot of times that are required for widths over 10 foot wide you got to have mid span blocks and they really do a great job at keeping the joists or preventing them from twisting and stuff like that but I do have to say this is something that a lot of people miss is they squeak sometimes this is where your squeaks come from in your floor sometimes so I'll leave it up to you whether you want to install them if you do stagger the blocks so that you can nail them you can face nail it you can see here where you could face nail it on this side and then face nail it on the other side and then work your way down all the way so that would be it for this one here you know I don't know you know I can't give you any recommendations for strengthening the footings for something like this that would be something that like I said you would need to check with an engineer on but if your footings are strong enough something like this would definitely work the next step will be to have a beam that will support the joist these walls and footings of course won't be you will have to the wall here and then the beam and this will be transferring the load of the floor here to each post and then down to the footings which you would probably need to install a footing for this type of design here take a look at the footing and again the size I wouldn't be able to provide you with but you would need one on each I'd kind of just giving you an idea here what it would look like you can't do this when you're working out on the job joist hangers again will attach to the joists will set in joist hangers and attach to the ledger which a ledger will of course be either nailed or you would use legs to attach it to the wall framing kind of going around there are the hangers again attaching the joist to the beam view from the bottom the other angle there let's go ahead and take off over to another suggestion that I have let's just say that you're thinking you're gonna need a six by 12 or a six by fourteen for something like this well you might be able to use a four by twelve for something like this or a four by fourteen if you put a post in the center this would kind of cut the load in half the structural load from the floor so just kind of one two throw in another idea out there and again if you're gonna build a wall across here you could also use the wall to help support the wall would just come off of the end of the post and you could basically put the post inside of the wall that makes sense just kind of giving you another view here something else you're going to need our fire blocks this will prevent any fire from that if there was a fire underneath this floor it the fire or the flames will not come into this area or I should say at least it has like a one hour burn through and something else about fire boxes it also prevents oxygen from fueling the fire if this was the only source of oxygen and it's you don't have this block here and it's pulling oxygen from above these fire blocks are going to be helping you there to prevent that from happening now one more thing if you do this design I already talked about this footing here but you also might need to create an additional footing underneath the the existing footing and again I'm just kind of throwing something out there that I've done in the past when I when an engineer might have actually required something like this so anyway that is it for this video hope it helps if you are gonna build the loft then feel free to use some of these ideas just remember like I said you've heard this before from me I am NOT a structural engineer I cannot provide you