Cool, I’m glad to hear that it’s not an issue.
Board and batten seems to have been pretty popular around here on these old working class houses (originally they were all 20’x20’, I’m not sure if the houses were kits or not.) although most of them now have weird variations of vinyl lap, stucco, fake stone or brick, you name it. I like the board and batten and plan to one day redo the siding with hardiplank.
For what it’s worth, I live in Zilker, and I love your house! It’s hard to explain to people who aren’t living in older neighborhoods how different the central Austin housing market is. Property values are through the roof, but there are still a lot of older small houses with lots of character that don’t cost that much more than a condo.
The small houses around Austin were originally cheap housing for working class families. As much as I love the old houses around here, I don’t think that the folks who built them put any more money into them than was absolutely necessary.
I think that the boards of the board and batten are pretty much what works as framing in that wall. I’m reminded of a house on the East Side that I painted as part of a volunteer project. We didn’t go inside the house, but the boards were all bowed out near ground level. To me, it looked like there were few if any studs in the house and the dampness of the ground had softened the boards. I have also seen a few of these homes stripped and rebuilt (probably to keep the walls standing to grandfather in the work), and the studs in board and batten homes were at 32" centers if not farther apart.
I’ve only done a little bit of remodeling, but my guess is that it would be a good idea to tie the boards and the girt (I guess that’s the term) to the header. Maybe you could put blocking on top of the header to create a sort of strongback and tie the boards to the door framing. If the wall is balloon framed (without a top plate), you might be able to run the king studs up to the rafters You might even want to widen the rough opening a little to the right to pick up part of another board. I don’t think that there is all that much of a load to support, but it should make the door move less when you open and close it or when someone leans on it.
I agree it was probably a nailer/attachment point, not sure for what, but siding sounds good. It’s possible that back then, when balloon framing was quite common, that this was the accepted and common way to do that.
Notching would also be stronger compared to blocks, which are common now for siding nailers on balloon framed gable ends. I can definitely see doing this after looking at the cool pics. Of course, I could be completely wrong. 
Also, in the days before framing guns, notching the board in would be much faster and easier to hand nail than nailing blocks in between studs. Framing guns only got real popular starting in the '70’s, with the Paslode SK312, one of which I still use today.
Incidentely, I did a bunch of cedar board and batten siding in the 80’s on TX gulf coast beach houses. It was really popular.
Ok, now looking at pic 004, you are fine. Your carpenter just needs to frame the opening. (nice clean cuts on the drywall BTW, cool)
At the top, he can just put in a header of double 2x4 sandwitched over plywood/OSB, with a couple more vertical blocks. Looking at that pic, it’s gravy. The sides, just standard jacks. (king stud/cripple.)
I can see now why he wants a big RO, because you need room for plumb working right next to an old stud, better to shim than be too tight. If I am not misunderstanding this, it looks good, and the dude seems to be doing it right.
I should say you need room for the jambs to be plumb, the framing can be out an inch or more, that’s why you shim the jambs to plumb, and have a nice finished opening for the door. Or if it’s pre-hung, much easier to fit in a larger rough opening.
Cool, thanks! I’m really excited to be a homeowner. The house is really tiny but I’m one block from Town Lake and less than a mile from downtown. It’s so cool being able to just walk down.
Yeah, and you’re not kidding about the low maintenance. I bought east (this area is changin so fast) and it was really hard to find a house that wasn’t a complete teardown. (I needed something I could live in while I fixed it up) Luckily, this house has been pretty well maintained for it’s age and had already been rehabbed some (but not over flipped) on the inside.
That actually makes a lot of sense looking at this wall. I think the studs were added during the rehabbing and aren’t part of the original structure.
HI!
I believe what you have here is a diaphragm wall. This is a type of wall where the heavier vertical sheathing boards act as both the sheathing and the studs. The two by four going horizontally in there is a mid-wall girt, or stiffener brace. You will find a single or double two by four plate at the top and another at the bottom. The studs were added later by someone who didnt understand what the wall framing was. Your very cool house probably started out as a garage or machine shed in the early days. Dont worry about the strength of this unconventional framing, these diaphragm walls are quite strong. The combined cross section of the sheathing is actually larger than studs on sixteen inch centers. I have seen this type of construction on farm buildings and garages and most of it is quite old and still very sound. My brother had a garage of this type of construction out in California, built in 1913, which had survived numerous earthquakes and a hurricane of two, and it is still standing. He had a funny encounter with an inspector who informed him that the garage was unsafe and at the point of collapse due to a lack of studs. My brother pointed out to this “expert” that the old garage had stood that way for a hundred years and was still upright and square and he wasnt about do demolish a solid and somewhat historic building.
As for framing the new door, a standard door frame of doubled studs with a header on jack studs all well fastened to the sheathing around the opening will do the job. Have your handyperson check the code there on this. IF you have enough wall opened up, a couple of diagonal braces on the upper and lower sides of the girt would be a good idea. If I were a gambling man (too broke and too married to gamble) I would guess that if you live near a military base or former war industry, your house may have been a utility building converted to war housing in the 1940’s. There are still a lot of these all over the southwest and other parts of the country. I bet your place has a heck of interesting history in it. Maybe a book, even.
Success to your endeavor!
Never heard of a diaphragm wall, interesting. Not that I have extensive knowledge of early wood frame techniques. Good addition to an old thread but do note that the question was asked over seven years ago so hopefully the project is long finished.
Doing a fire restoration on a 90(?) year old bungalow right now. Some …interesting…structural choices used in the original construction and some hilariously bad solutions in following renovations. I have to see a roof demoed today so off I go.
The OP’s rehab project was 7 years ago. Nice of **LargleBargle **to stop by and offer some help nonetheless.