With most of the joist soundproofing and the HVAC out of the way, it was time to start framing. As suspected, the short wall of the little room was load bearing, so I needed to have the wall replaced with an engineered beam. Surprisingly, that job went quickly and over the course of a few weeks I put up the new walls in both the main room and hallway and started a new ceiling in the hallway, hiding the mess of HVAC ducts. I also rebuilt all of the soffits to save on space and framed out the opening for the equipment closet.
