Thickening a wall frame.

I'm renoing the laundry to make a 2nd bathroom. I've removed all the AC sheet from the internal walls, and also the weatherboards on the external wall.

The external wall is constructed from 90mm hardwood studs which I will need to rearrange a bit. The problem is that I need more than a 90mm wall cavity to accommodate an in-wall cistern which needs about 150mm.

So the plan is:

- Fix-up the existing stud wall so that the studs are in the correct positions for windows, cistern, etc.
- 'Pack-out' the studs by a further 70mm by attaching 70x35mm timber to the internal faces of the existing studs, including the top and bottom plates.
- Fix plasterboard to the internal face of the studs (wall will be tiled to ceiling).

I'm not sure if this is the best way of fixing the packing studs, I thought I would be able to nail through the studs at an angle and also add timber joiners across the faces of the two attached studs or gal straps which pull the packing studs against the existing ones.

Is this approach too unorthadox? The other approach would be to use, say, 140mm wide timber and overlap it onto the 90mm studs by 70mm.

Any suggestions please? Hoping to start on it tomorrow.

Cheers
Nick
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