# Making a knee wall sturdy



## cibula11 (Jan 23, 2007)

I posted this on a different forum, but I'll try here too.  I am creating a knee wall that will act as a railing as you go into my attic space.  My question has been how to make this sturdy.  I don't want a lot of wobble as you could imagine.  My floor joists will run parallel to the wall and there is actually a joist directly beneath the placement of the wall.  Ideas??


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## Quattro (Jan 23, 2007)

You could notch a few of your knee-wall 2x4's so they half-straddle the joists, then nail/screw/bolt them to the joist. This should be plenty strong. You would only need 1 or 2 of them for the run of the knee-wall. The rest could just nail to the bottom sill plate 2x4. 

This is how the knee-walls were attached in my kitchen, but I tore 'em out! They were very sturdy.


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## glennjanie (Jan 23, 2007)

I agree with Square Eye's solution from the earlier post. Cut blocks, screw them between the joists and your 2 X 4s can be screwed to the blocks. Beside being strong, they will prevent ceiling damage below-- attaching to one joist will allow that joist to twist and turn causing a crack in the ceiling.
Glenn


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## Quattro (Jan 23, 2007)

glennjanie said:


> attaching to one joist will allow that joist to twist and turn causing a crack in the ceiling.
> Glenn



You'd have to put a lot of lateral force on that wall...but I concur.


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## cibula11 (Jan 23, 2007)

I will see what I can do when I am looking at the floor joist.  But I think that since the placement of the wall is pretty well set....it will be difficult to use blocking because the joist runs directly under where I need the wall to be.  So I may have to fir out the blocking so that I can keep the wall where it needs to be. Thanks for all the responses!


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