I've got a smallish kitchen but a largish garage adjoining. I want to push a pantry into the garage to increase the kitchen storage. [url=http://mdd64.home.comcast.net/pantry.gif]Top-down diagram. (12K)[/url] The main house is built on a separate foundation from the garage and we live in an area with expansive soils (Bentonite) so there has to be a bit of a consideration for very slight motion differences between the house & the garage. There's two steps down between the kitchen floor & the garage floor. Right now I want to build it like I was adding a deck onto my house. I want to attach a ledger board to the sill of the house (once I peel the garage wall off), extend 2x6 runners (probaby doubled) to 4x4 posts in the corners, add joists, then lay a plywood sheet on top. [url=http://mdd64.home.comcast.net/pantry2.gif]Like this...(8K)[/url] On top of that, I want to raise a rather standard wall with a top & bottom plates & studs of 2x4's. Some questions left unanswered, that you folks may be able to opine on... 1. Should I (and how) attach the pantry floor to the back wall of the garage (see top pic link)? 2. Should I make the back wall of the garage the pantry wall itself or build a new wall parallel & touching the garage wall? If I make the back wall of the garage the pantry wall, I will have to attach the floor of the pantry to the back wall somehow - can't have the thing shifting somehow. 3. Should I attach the 4x4 posts to the concrete garage floor or trust friction and gravity to keep them from moving too much. (I was thinking the ability to move a bit might help compensate for the potential house/garage motion). 4. I'm going to have to use the garage's trusses for the ceiling, the slightly lower garage ceiling would make a second ceiling too low. Once again I'm thinking this would require me to attach the platform to the garage walls (can't have the floor moving independently of the ceiling). 5. I intend to do the majority of the construction with long decking screws rather than nails. My poor nailing skills make a screw much more practicle. Anything wrong with this? 6. How can I keep the tops of the walls from wiggling? (I think this leads me back to attaching this to the two garage walls again.) I could place additional ceiling joists, between the trusses, to tie the walls together, right? 7. Any tricks, besides careful measuring, for matching these two floors up? 8. What else? I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

My new house used to be a summer cottage, built in 1955. Some of the ceiling tiles in the living room were falling off, and after taking them all down I discovered the rafters are 2 x 4s. I would like to sheetrock the ceiling, but am worried about the weight load. Is 1/2" sheetrock risky, or should I go with 1/4"? (or is even that too heavy?) Also, I'd like to put in recessed lighting up there, but from what I'm seeing it calls for a minimum of 2 x 6 joist construction (even the "shallow" housing units do.) Any suggestions? Thanks!