Kneewalls

My Aunt Ruthie, in Maine, wrote a note asking me to explain what "kneewalls" are, so I did up a little drawing in Sketch-Up to try to make it clear. Basically they are the walls that connect the gable end walls along the sides of the house that the rafters all land on. They support the roof. They can be any height, but are usually fairly low, so I think the term kneewall comes from the fact that they are generally around the height of -you guessed it- your knees. I guess that would make our walls "chestwalls". The lower the kneewall is, the sooner you bump your head into the ceiling as you walk towards it. With our extra thick roof lowering the ceiling, I wanted to maintain a reasonable amount of useful space under the eaves of the roof, so our kneewalls are 4'-6" high.

The orange band in the drawing shows the kneewall along the second floor west wall. The blue bands represent the first and second floors.