**Sheeting a Wall Already Framed and Standing**

As I began to sheet this wall, I started by finding the center of one of the 16-inch centers on the wall. Since we had laid out the wall with our framing, I knew that an 8T sheet would span across the window, ending up halfway onto the end of the next stud. To confirm my measurements, I nailed a few nails to mark where the edge of my window was, making sure not to fire too many nails into thin air.

To make things easier, I referenced the lines or marks set up on the 16-inch centers or whatever framing pattern we were using. If I didn't have these markings, I would have marked a line square or wherever needed to help guide my nails. As I worked, I kept track of where each nail went in relation to the studs and the window frame. With the chalk marks in place, I was able to easily locate the edge of the window opening.

Next, I measured from the top of the top plate down to the sill to ensure accurate measurements for the window's vertical lines. My measurements showed that the total height of the window was 31 inches. With these markings in place, I could snap a line on each side of the window, creating a clear outline for cutting out the opening.

To cut out the window, I set my circular saw blade depth to 3/4 inch to avoid sticking it too far into the wall. Since I wasn't starting at an edge of a sheet, I needed to make a plunge cut. Using a video as reference, I showed how to safely make plunge cuts with different types of saws.

With the saw ready, I carefully made the cut, taking care not to backfire or lose control of the blade. After completing the cut, I removed my nails and pulled out the old sheeting. The opening was now flush, and I could continue sheathing the rest of the wall.

**Tips for Sheeting a Wall**

As someone who works by themselves frequently, having an extra person can make a big difference in completing tasks efficiently. However, even without assistance, following these steps should enable you to complete the task at home. To make the most of this guide, be sure to subscribe to our channel and like any videos that feature you. You'll also find links to other relevant content in the description below each video.

**Conclusion**

Sheeting a wall already framed and standing requires attention to detail, careful measurement, and the right tools. By following these steps and tips, you should be able to complete this task with confidence. Remember to check our channel for more videos on various DIY topics and subscribe to stay up-to-date on new content.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI work alone a lot so uh you come up with these different ways to be able to do things that you probably shouldn't do by yourself but you do anyways hi Shannon here from house improvements.com in the video today I'm going to show you how I'm going to add some sheathing to this wall that's already standing back here so when we stood the walls for the cabin uh if you've watched that video you would have seen that we left this one wall on with no sheeting on it that was just to reduce some of the weight I at first wasn't sure how many people were going to be coming to help me stand the wall so I just wanted to knock a little bit of pounds off of it to be sure we didn't have to struggle so now I've got to sheet the wall so it's not uncommon for people to frame the the whole house or whatever without sheeting um you know especially if you're working mainly by yourself so this video is kind of for those people who have a lot of sheeting to do on any kind of wall that's standing up already so uh in my case what I did because I'm going to do this by myself I uh snapped a chalk line along the wall I measured up um 48 in from the bottom cuz that's the width of my sheets the height of my sheets I measured that up on both ends of the wall then I strung out a trck chalk line snap that line so that's kind of a guideline that's going to be the top edge of my first row of sheet cheating my B bottom row and then um my next issue was that because down at the bottom uh you can see my rim joist down here but then below that it's just styrofoam so I can't you know easily nail a block there or you know maybe you've got cement there so you know again you can't easily just nail a block to set your first sheet on to kind of hold it up so what I did is I went along and I just hammered in a small nail on that chalk line about every 6 feet so that what I could do is carry my sheet over and uh hold it up tight to those Nails slid over to the end that I want to either my last sheet or or the starting Edge down there and uh then I can at least get a couple Nails in started with my nailer and then the sheets sitting nice so here's here's my nail and you can see the chalk line snapped along there and I just put a few Nails every so often so that they'll hit that top edge of my sheet so the key is to you know get your nailer get everything nice and close in handy because once you get doing this you don't want to hopefully have to stop or reset or anything so got my nailer there uh I've got it turned on I've got a few Nails in it I'm going to put on some safety glasses and uh down on this other end down on this far end over here I've actually got a lip of sheathing sticking out um if I didn't I would just screw a block onto the end here so I could you know manhandle my sheet over once it bumps that block I knew i' would be far enough and up to my nails I've got a nail here and a nail there you probably can't see that very well but uh I don't know hopefully the sun I think the picture is pretty decent hopefully the sun's not too much in your way got a lot of Shadows here today and it's windy as heck so uh I'm the one thing I'm glad though it isn't raining today so okay so I've got my nailer close by I've got my sheet just kind of standing leaning here I can lift it up with one hand up to the nails I'm slid over to that other end got my one knee up against there get a couple o not slid down so just get a couple Nails in at first and then double check that everything looks okay before you go crazy that's the one thing with these these uh Power nailers or whatever you want to call them uh it's really easy to get way too many nails in before you know that you're good and uh then you got a heck of a time you basically wrecking the sheet getting it off so so I'm good down here I'm good I'm on the center of my uh um 2x6 framing there I'm up against my nails so I think that's going to be all right so I'm going to nail the sheet off so I'm using just happens to be P load nails but uh that's what I find works good in these Milwaukee nailers 30° nailer uh so they're a 2 and 38 nail so I went about every 6 or 8 in on any edges and then on each stud uh I'm going to go uh every 12 in so we'll get one on each Edge and then uh three more across the body of the panel okay so I went all the way across the top uh I'll go across the bottom I'm going to do about every 8 in on the bottom in my case I'm nailing right into the sill so I've got lots of wood there to nail so like I said in the body of the panel then I want to go every foot which on a 4ft panel will be three Nails don't know why there's no line on this sheet in that position but uh anyways so we're good there I guess I could put another row here okay that's our first sheet so I'm just going to continue on do exactly the same thing um all the way along this first row and then we'll come back um because I'm hanging my sheeting down over my sill joist I'm basically 12 in um uh covering 12 more in than my actual wall uh yeah than my wall height so my wall height is 8 ft but then if I'm going down that other uh 12 in I need 9 ft of of uh wall panel or of sheathing so what I'm going to do in my case is I'm putting a belly band in here at 11 and 3/4 so that'll be my second row and then my top row of full sheets will just sit on top of that and the reason I'm doing that so you can see at my window opening if I went if I just put another 4ft row here my four feet just gets me over top my my header and uh doesn't give me as much strength up there tying the wall together and and keeping the wall from racking so by putting my belly band down here and my sheet on top of it my my sheet spans about three inches down below my windows or this window at least in this case and goes right up over the whole header and ties that all together so it's I in my mind it's just stronger that way so uh that's what I'm doing you may decide to do different or you may have differ sized uh sheets in your area that are available to you at a decent price um that are wider so you could just do two two rows I'm just using standard 4x8 x 7/16 uh OSB so uh now of course not all your windows are going to be the same height but on the average this is just the way that it worked out the best for uh most of the windows and openings around my home so over the cabin okay so I'm going to go ahead and just add the rest of these sheets on that first row and then I'll come back and do this belly band and get this first sheet around the window just to give you a bit of an idea better what's going on now something I didn't mention is uh when you're putting on your first row this is a good time to stretch out a tape as you're nailing all these um studs and make sure that they don't need any manipulating you know right or left to to get centered on the 60 in Mark now under the window here I didn't think to do it because I really couldn't because of this them being nailed so close here there's really no movement I could have got out of them anyways but uh now that I'm thinking of it and we're to some ful length studs I'm just going to double check that these are going to be all right so I'm just going to put a mark and then I'll adjust them to my mark Cuz they are oh just a hair the these ones uh that one's pretty close that one's that one's close too now they're all they're all close within e of an inch or less but I'm just going to adjust them slightly if they need it since I can okay the other thing I didn't mention is uh another thing that these nails are going to help me do is create a slight space between all my rows of sheets which is recommended to have a slight Gap and usually the thickness of a of a sheeting nail is is good enough and you get a little bit of a space at the ends of your sheets if possible too so okay so I've gone far enough down there on that end to get enough done on this end here to finish the video so uh now I'm going to put my belly band piece in and I want to stagger my joints from row to row so uh the belly band I'm not really worrying about that but the next row up I want to make sure I stagger back at least a couple studs so belly band is going to be 8ft piece to start again like I said you may not be needing to do this belly band particular part but so I'm just setting it on those nails that I had here and that's going to give me my Gap give me the Gap that I need like that and uh I'm going to come right over to here with my next piece on my next row and that's to get my stagger in my joints so 32 and that's what it works out to be that's what it should have been okay so I've got my piece cut um like I said you you want to have a little bit of a gap through your sheets so I'm just going to move these nails up here temporary get my Gap and I've got my piece cut that I'm going to start with it should end up Center of this stud and get a couple Nails in it okay so I just kind of nailed as high as I can high as I can reach and because we've got the wall laid out on our 16in centers and we landed on the center of one of them here an 8T sheet will um span right across this window and end up on halfway on to the end of uh the next um having trouble for words say end up on the halfway onto the next stud down there okay I'll move my nails up again all right little toss the sheet up there just marking where the edge of my window is so I don't go trying to fire a bunch of nails into uh thin air out there just making sure I have a bit of a gap on the end there we go got a couple Nam na in there I know where to nail because cuz I can see my other Nails on the studs and also through that crack I can kind of see where the stud is and your sheeting should have these lines or some kind of marks set up on 16in centers or 24in centers whatever your framing is so it makes it uh a little bit easy and if you don't have that you can always Mark a line square a line on there or whatever if you need it to help follow you want your nails into the lumber okay so I'm going to get a ladder and finish nailing this off and then I'm going to cut out that window there this will get me high enough to what I need and I'll just finish nailing this off H where was that window opening right here I lost my Mark it's got to be right here okay so I can finish nailing off right around the edge of that window once I have it cut out and I Can See Clearly where I need to be okay so to to cut out the window remember I put this Mark here so I knew where to nail so I know that that's the edge of the opening so I can just measure to that uh put a mark further up the height of the window at that same measurement and snap a line between those two marks so I'll just use one of my nails I had before a chalk line string on here okay so there's that one and do the other vertical one further down same thing I can simply measure that actually I'm going to measure it off this end of this other sheet that's off to my other side just cuz it's closer okay there's my two vertical sides just trying to refresh my memory how high that sill is and I can't remember so I'm going to get a measurement inside from the top of the top plate down to the sill and then I can transfer those out here and also the total height of the window so my measurement inside was 45 and an E from the top of the top plate that's it and 31 was my total height of my opening okay so now I've got those marked I can snap lines on those okay so now I've got a nice chalked outline which I'm sure you can't see in the lighting here I guess you can see it faintly there there's my outline pull my nails out so I don't cut them and I can take my circular saw and cut that opening out so I just set my blade depth to this is 716 in so I set my blade depth to like 3/4 just so I'm don't have a blade sticking way into the wall and I'm going to make this cut so to make that cut I'm I have to do a plun PL cut to get started cuz I'm not starting at an edge of a sheet I'm actually starting by plunging the blade while it's spinning into the sheet and I actually have a video showing you how to make plunge Cuts with a few different types of saws including circular saw so you may want to check that out I just about backfired didn't want to go quite in forgot I had that brace there okay so we got that cut out our opening is nice and flush that's good and uh we can continue on now just sheating the rest of the wall okay so that's it I I uh just wanted to show you how I would sheet a wall that was already framed and standing and uh I just kind of went through the steps I would normally do I work by myself a lot so if you have a extra person that will definitely make things a whole heck of a lot easier but if not hopefully some of the tips I showed you here will enable you to do this at home uh just going to quickly ask you to subscribe to the channel click the thumbs up uh click any of the links that you you see over my shoulder there and uh if there's not any links there then check the description below the video we'll throw some links there we have a lot of videos all on our channel so go check them outI work alone a lot so uh you come up with these different ways to be able to do things that you probably shouldn't do by yourself but you do anyways hi Shannon here from house improvements.com in the video today I'm going to show you how I'm going to add some sheathing to this wall that's already standing back here so when we stood the walls for the cabin uh if you've watched that video you would have seen that we left this one wall on with no sheeting on it that was just to reduce some of the weight I at first wasn't sure how many people were going to be coming to help me stand the wall so I just wanted to knock a little bit of pounds off of it to be sure we didn't have to struggle so now I've got to sheet the wall so it's not uncommon for people to frame the the whole house or whatever without sheeting um you know especially if you're working mainly by yourself so this video is kind of for those people who have a lot of sheeting to do on any kind of wall that's standing up already so uh in my case what I did because I'm going to do this by myself I uh snapped a chalk line along the wall I measured up um 48 in from the bottom cuz that's the width of my sheets the height of my sheets I measured that up on both ends of the wall then I strung out a trck chalk line snap that line so that's kind of a guideline that's going to be the top edge of my first row of sheet cheating my B bottom row and then um my next issue was that because down at the bottom uh you can see my rim joist down here but then below that it's just styrofoam so I can't you know easily nail a block there or you know maybe you've got cement there so you know again you can't easily just nail a block to set your first sheet on to kind of hold it up so what I did is I went along and I just hammered in a small nail on that chalk line about every 6 feet so that what I could do is carry my sheet over and uh hold it up tight to those Nails slid over to the end that I want to either my last sheet or or the starting Edge down there and uh then I can at least get a couple Nails in started with my nailer and then the sheets sitting nice so here's here's my nail and you can see the chalk line snapped along there and I just put a few Nails every so often so that they'll hit that top edge of my sheet so the key is to you know get your nailer get everything nice and close in handy because once you get doing this you don't want to hopefully have to stop or reset or anything so got my nailer there uh I've got it turned on I've got a few Nails in it I'm going to put on some safety glasses and uh down on this other end down on this far end over here I've actually got a lip of sheathing sticking out um if I didn't I would just screw a block onto the end here so I could you know manhandle my sheet over once it bumps that block I knew i' would be far enough and up to my nails I've got a nail here and a nail there you probably can't see that very well but uh I don't know hopefully the sun I think the picture is pretty decent hopefully the sun's not too much in your way got a lot of Shadows here today and it's windy as heck so uh I'm the one thing I'm glad though it isn't raining today so okay so I've got my nailer close by I've got my sheet just kind of standing leaning here I can lift it up with one hand up to the nails I'm slid over to that other end got my one knee up against there get a couple o not slid down so just get a couple Nails in at first and then double check that everything looks okay before you go crazy that's the one thing with these these uh Power nailers or whatever you want to call them uh it's really easy to get way too many nails in before you know that you're good and uh then you got a heck of a time you basically wrecking the sheet getting it off so so I'm good down here I'm good I'm on the center of my uh um 2x6 framing there I'm up against my nails so I think that's going to be all right so I'm going to nail the sheet off so I'm using just happens to be P load nails but uh that's what I find works good in these Milwaukee nailers 30° nailer uh so they're a 2 and 38 nail so I went about every 6 or 8 in on any edges and then on each stud uh I'm going to go uh every 12 in so we'll get one on each Edge and then uh three more across the body of the panel okay so I went all the way across the top uh I'll go across the bottom I'm going to do about every 8 in on the bottom in my case I'm nailing right into the sill so I've got lots of wood there to nail so like I said in the body of the panel then I want to go every foot which on a 4ft panel will be three Nails don't know why there's no line on this sheet in that position but uh anyways so we're good there I guess I could put another row here okay that's our first sheet so I'm just going to continue on do exactly the same thing um all the way along this first row and then we'll come back um because I'm hanging my sheeting down over my sill joist I'm basically 12 in um uh covering 12 more in than my actual wall uh yeah than my wall height so my wall height is 8 ft but then if I'm going down that other uh 12 in I need 9 ft of of uh wall panel or of sheathing so what I'm going to do in my case is I'm putting a belly band in here at 11 and 3/4 so that'll be my second row and then my top row of full sheets will just sit on top of that and the reason I'm doing that so you can see at my window opening if I went if I just put another 4ft row here my four feet just gets me over top my my header and uh doesn't give me as much strength up there tying the wall together and and keeping the wall from racking so by putting my belly band down here and my sheet on top of it my my sheet spans about three inches down below my windows or this window at least in this case and goes right up over the whole header and ties that all together so it's I in my mind it's just stronger that way so uh that's what I'm doing you may decide to do different or you may have differ sized uh sheets in your area that are available to you at a decent price um that are wider so you could just do two two rows I'm just using standard 4x8 x 7/16 uh OSB so uh now of course not all your windows are going to be the same height but on the average this is just the way that it worked out the best for uh most of the windows and openings around my home so over the cabin okay so I'm going to go ahead and just add the rest of these sheets on that first row and then I'll come back and do this belly band and get this first sheet around the window just to give you a bit of an idea better what's going on now something I didn't mention is uh when you're putting on your first row this is a good time to stretch out a tape as you're nailing all these um studs and make sure that they don't need any manipulating you know right or left to to get centered on the 60 in Mark now under the window here I didn't think to do it because I really couldn't because of this them being nailed so close here there's really no movement I could have got out of them anyways but uh now that I'm thinking of it and we're to some ful length studs I'm just going to double check that these are going to be all right so I'm just going to put a mark and then I'll adjust them to my mark Cuz they are oh just a hair the these ones uh that one's pretty close that one's that one's close too now they're all they're all close within e of an inch or less but I'm just going to adjust them slightly if they need it since I can okay the other thing I didn't mention is uh another thing that these nails are going to help me do is create a slight space between all my rows of sheets which is recommended to have a slight Gap and usually the thickness of a of a sheeting nail is is good enough and you get a little bit of a space at the ends of your sheets if possible too so okay so I've gone far enough down there on that end to get enough done on this end here to finish the video so uh now I'm going to put my belly band piece in and I want to stagger my joints from row to row so uh the belly band I'm not really worrying about that but the next row up I want to make sure I stagger back at least a couple studs so belly band is going to be 8ft piece to start again like I said you may not be needing to do this belly band particular part but so I'm just setting it on those nails that I had here and that's going to give me my Gap give me the Gap that I need like that and uh I'm going to come right over to here with my next piece on my next row and that's to get my stagger in my joints so 32 and that's what it works out to be that's what it should have been okay so I've got my piece cut um like I said you you want to have a little bit of a gap through your sheets so I'm just going to move these nails up here temporary get my Gap and I've got my piece cut that I'm going to start with it should end up Center of this stud and get a couple Nails in it okay so I just kind of nailed as high as I can high as I can reach and because we've got the wall laid out on our 16in centers and we landed on the center of one of them here an 8T sheet will um span right across this window and end up on halfway on to the end of uh the next um having trouble for words say end up on the halfway onto the next stud down there okay I'll move my nails up again all right little toss the sheet up there just marking where the edge of my window is so I don't go trying to fire a bunch of nails into uh thin air out there just making sure I have a bit of a gap on the end there we go got a couple Nam na in there I know where to nail because cuz I can see my other Nails on the studs and also through that crack I can kind of see where the stud is and your sheeting should have these lines or some kind of marks set up on 16in centers or 24in centers whatever your framing is so it makes it uh a little bit easy and if you don't have that you can always Mark a line square a line on there or whatever if you need it to help follow you want your nails into the lumber okay so I'm going to get a ladder and finish nailing this off and then I'm going to cut out that window there this will get me high enough to what I need and I'll just finish nailing this off H where was that window opening right here I lost my Mark it's got to be right here okay so I can finish nailing off right around the edge of that window once I have it cut out and I Can See Clearly where I need to be okay so to to cut out the window remember I put this Mark here so I knew where to nail so I know that that's the edge of the opening so I can just measure to that uh put a mark further up the height of the window at that same measurement and snap a line between those two marks so I'll just use one of my nails I had before a chalk line string on here okay so there's that one and do the other vertical one further down same thing I can simply measure that actually I'm going to measure it off this end of this other sheet that's off to my other side just cuz it's closer okay there's my two vertical sides just trying to refresh my memory how high that sill is and I can't remember so I'm going to get a measurement inside from the top of the top plate down to the sill and then I can transfer those out here and also the total height of the window so my measurement inside was 45 and an E from the top of the top plate that's it and 31 was my total height of my opening okay so now I've got those marked I can snap lines on those okay so now I've got a nice chalked outline which I'm sure you can't see in the lighting here I guess you can see it faintly there there's my outline pull my nails out so I don't cut them and I can take my circular saw and cut that opening out so I just set my blade depth to this is 716 in so I set my blade depth to like 3/4 just so I'm don't have a blade sticking way into the wall and I'm going to make this cut so to make that cut I'm I have to do a plun PL cut to get started cuz I'm not starting at an edge of a sheet I'm actually starting by plunging the blade while it's spinning into the sheet and I actually have a video showing you how to make plunge Cuts with a few different types of saws including circular saw so you may want to check that out I just about backfired didn't want to go quite in forgot I had that brace there okay so we got that cut out our opening is nice and flush that's good and uh we can continue on now just sheating the rest of the wall okay so that's it I I uh just wanted to show you how I would sheet a wall that was already framed and standing and uh I just kind of went through the steps I would normally do I work by myself a lot so if you have a extra person that will definitely make things a whole heck of a lot easier but if not hopefully some of the tips I showed you here will enable you to do this at home uh just going to quickly ask you to subscribe to the channel click the thumbs up uh click any of the links that you you see over my shoulder there and uh if there's not any links there then check the description below the video we'll throw some links there we have a lot of videos all on our channel so go check them out\n"