Twenty five years in and I still hit a stud count that surprised me yesterday

I was finishing up a basement job in an old house from the 1920s and had to mark out studs for the whole room. I counted 47 studs in one wall alone. That hit me different, like how many thousands of studs I must have touched over the years. Started thinking about my first job in '99 where the old timer made me count every single one by hand. We didn't have those fancy magnetic stud finders back then. Have you ever stopped to count how many studs you've hung board on in your whole career?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordanc3227d ago

Huh, I gotta say I see it a little different. Counting studs like that feels like measuring your life by how many times you've blinked. I've been doing this since the late 90s too and I honestly couldn't tell you how many studs I've hit, I just know the wall gets done and the next one starts. That number doesn't mean much to me when every job is just another wall, another day. Maybe I'm missing something but I'd rather forget the count and focus on whether the job is square and solid.

dakotawood26d ago

Yeah I had a buddy who framed houses for like fifteen years and he kept a tally in his head for the first few years. One day he realized he'd been counting studs while his kid learned to ride a bike right next to him and he couldn't even remember seeing it. He stopped counting that same day and just started paying attention to the wall and what was going on around him.