Roof - layer one

Last week was great.  We were so happy to have the frame standing, and have visitors from Alberta coming, that we hardly thought about the next step in this long process.  The house could wait.  Well..  turns out my brother can't stand to sit & visit, even if it's raining. As a bonus, he and his family spent last summer house building.

All I can say here is some people have NO fear of heights.  Well, no...if I didn't LIKE this brother a lot, I could come up with something witty about primates. 







Remember the 2x6" boards Dennis cut shiplap into with a customized Honda-powered table saw?  Here's their place:  they cover the rafters and are visible gorgeous from the inside.

Here's the new view from my kitchen window--

---and one of the girls took this view from their future bedroom window

The morning after

In my youth, my parents built 2 new houses.  I wasn't the chief worker or planner (or payer!) on either of those jobs, but I don't remember a day that came anywhere near what yesterday was here.  It was a remarkable day that we won't ever forget.

If you are reading this because you couldn't be here, I'm sorry you missed the marvel of seeing all the pieces fitting together and the sense of community as huge beams were guided into place, some as much as 35' off the ground on the south end.

And if you were here, a very big thank you from our family.  It was an amazing day that couldn't have have happened without you.

I don't have words, but we have hundreds of pictures. Here are a few.

The last peg!

From the southwest.

From the northeast.

Noon: Ahead of projected pace!

From a couple angles when we stopped for lunch @ 12:10  Half the floor joists for the loft are in, one more set of queen posts to go, then 12 pieces (that will together make the 4 long beams to join the house from end to end) and the rafters.

We're excited with the progress!

9:30 AM--Off to a good start

On the eve of Raising

Well, here we are!  12 hours until the crane will be here.   Dennis's list is done.  The chili is in the slowcookers, coolers for pop & water are washed & ready.  There are a few little things to do, like a quick tidying in the main bathroom, but mostly I need to relax and rest. 

Morning will be here soon!

Countdown to Raising Day

Monday evening: we made a list of things that need to be done before Raising. 

• sand 5 braces
• varnish 10 braces
• sand 8 large timbers
• varnish 8 big timbers
• assemble bents
• mark timber footprints on floor
• install one more floor jack in basement under stair post
• put "stops" on rafters for securing lifting sling
• repair "Big Bertha" (huge wooden mallet aka The Persuader)
• prefit 36" braces in mortices
• stack single timbers in lifting sequence
• book crane
• phone a friend -or several
• trip to lumber yard for small supplies
• bracing material on hand
• rent scaffold

Tuesday morning:   Dennis's brother & sis-in-law have an unbooked day and come by to help.  They help Dennis move timbers onto the floor and start assembling bents.  These should be quick & easy for the crane to lift.   

Pounding the first peg.  No more "test fits".  This is for real !!

Making very good progress on the first bent.

It's been a good day: 2 bents done and there's still just enough natural light to clean up the tools.

Wednesday morning:  Dennis read over the list again, sets the goal and locks it in by booking a crane for Thurs, Aug 26.  The countdown has begun.  Nine days!   Now we have a definate date to book off work, and we can start phoning the friends who wanted to try to be here for Raising (as per THE LIST).   

Wednesday evening:   The euphoria of having a date booked for Raising eases off a little and I realize my list also includes hostessing:  getting lunch and possibly supper ready for however many people--work crew, their spouses & kids and other spectators-- who show up on Raising Day, getting tables, garbage cans, adequate drinking water if it's a hot day, and ...  My head spins for a moment.   Put that against a backdrop of life where back-to-school is looming too, there are some large projects we're trying to finish at work before month end, and we have (very loved and wonderful) out-of-province guests coming for a few days at about the same time as the Raising.  I have a mental near-meltdown.  Okay, it's all good.  Pick up the pieces, make some lists and GET WORKING !! 

Saturday (today):   Things are progressing well.  Only 5 more days.  The menu is planned, the grocery shopping done and the baking is in the freezer.  (Except for 2 items that family members have offered to bring..same thing though...on my list, that counts as done.) 

Dennis is working this weekend, and we took some time to go to the parade in town this morning, but with the 3 1/2 hours we had, there was more progress on stacking timbers and we also have 3/4 of the work done on assembling bent #3.

We also discovered today that we need a new theory about black mold & discoloration on the timbers.  Even some of those that have been under a dry roof since the day they were cut out of a log have some discoloration!  It's not just rain, straw bales & tarps to blame.  They were properly separated with 1" airspace on all sides...maybe they needed slight air movement too?  And if so, where's the line between drying the wood too quickly, which causes excessive cracking, and getting enough air movement?   Sigh...we're just glad none of the damage we found today is major or in visible places.  There's almost no action required to clean these up.

Making progress

It's been a week of sanding & varnishing.  There have been some where Dennis was right  (Yay!!!) : washing with water is all a few of them needed.

There are smaller piles of timbers all over the front yard.  Some days I've wondered how to drive through the maze to get my car to the house when a tractor's blocking the driveway.  The piles represent various stages of resurfacing and sorting into sections for raising.

Last weekend we took advantage of Saturday (2 adults available to work on the house) to "test fit" the east wall of the house.  Raising Day will go much smoother if all the 1/16 & 1/32" problems are worked out in advance.  It's also a lot less stressful knowing that if there was any small discrepancy, you won't  be discovering and fixing it with a crew of family & friends watching and a rented crane waiting. 

There were a few places where taking a paper-thin slice off a tenon with a wide chisel was needed to fit it snuggly into the mortise.  But that wall all fit together, the wall "squares" and is exactly the 42' long we thought we were building.  Very encouraging to seethe many pieces of the project coming together and working right!

Just in this pic, there are 7 places where the fit is checked.  And there's an ugly piece of blocking to hold it off the ground while also allowing us to level to whole wall.

I've got to go for now, but more news later today!

Filling in the hole, Assessing the damage

An aquaintance of ours, an older gentleman who'd seen more than one person's share of grief, used to often say "it's never so bad it couldn't be worse".  Today's headline reminds me of that.  It sounds bad.  But really, things aren't so terrible.

Filling the hole:  The time has finally come to backfill around the basement.  There is no longer a gaping hole in the lawn, and we can walk right up to the house.  It just got WAY easier to put tools and building supplies on the floor!!

 

Assessing the damage:  Not quite as happy a story here.  It is now time to give serious attention to the 64 timbers under the tarp where water-damage has occurred:  but not just water damage.  Originally (in January) the plan was to put straw bales on the tarp so the wind wouldn't tear it up, and it would stay in place to provide reliable shade for the timbers so they wouldn't discolor in the sun. 

That still seems like a good plan, but in hindsight, we can figure out what happened.  There came an unexpected monsoon season, the straw molded to black from the inside of the bale, and the rain carried the black onto the timbers.  By the time we saw any evidence the bales were molding, the damage was done. 

We learned this past weekend that pressure washing won't fix the problem.  But even if you know what to look for, sanding them down to the wood (80,120 & 220grit) and re-varnishing them (2 coats) is erasing 99% of the damage.  It just takes time, and sets back the whole schedule by 5-10 days and will cost another $300+ in varnish.  Dennis is still optomistic that last 1/3 of the timbers to go under that tarp haven't suffered and won't need refinishing.  Here's more proof we balance each other:  I'm much less optomistic.  Hope he's right, though.

We keep seeing flecks of the "silver lining" in this.  It gives us one more chance to admire the beauty of the raw wood.  It also answers the question of how to address the color variation due to a running change the varnish/stain manufacturer made in their formula.  It will all be the same now!

Starting the floor

The professional opinion of the engineer is that the timber frame is too heavy to sit on floor joists that span the full 28' width of the house.  The solution is a 6x16"x42' laminated "beam" and floor joists only 14' long.  Guess we've been working with the solid wood too long, because this laminated stuff strikes us as very wimpy!  Even a 6" thick sheet of plywood (which is the quick description of this product) has significant sag in one direction.  Good thing the 16" depth of the beam that will be holding the weight has good stability! 

But since this is prior to "Crane Stage", how will we get it onto the basement walls?  At the walk-out end of the basement, that beam sits at least 10' above ground level.  The best idea we had was to try 2 tractors equipped with bale forks & slings.

On the tractor, the VP of Operations

What a miserable time!! First we had to do this in the evening when everyone was tired:  that alone could have prompted several relationship disasters.  Then it was raining and getting dark. Also, the beam kept turning in the slings so the weight was borne by the flexible face. That LVL beam is easily capable of 2.5' of deflection (at center over a 41' span) if it turns the wrong way!!

Logistics Manager

On the ladder,
VP of Communications

(And on the other side of the camera, the VP of Publicity)

Anyhow, here are the HIGH moments of the evening:

 Almost there!

 Setting in the first end!

SUCCESS!!  all slings & tractors removed! 9:45 PM

We must be keeping busy.  I started this entry by uploading pics the same evening we set the LVL beam into the basement.  Tommorrow those pics are 2 weeks old!  We haven't taken many pictures, but my memory tells me that like the above picture, we've been worked 'til near-dark several evenings to finish up tasks that work best with 2 adults.  Those have been long days for Dennis.  I start late enough that it only takes a couple hours to work 'til sundown. 

So, as I post this, the floor joists are in and the floor is sheeted.  The outside of the basement is all covered with plywood and vapor barrier.  We just want to dig a section of sewer line under the foundation, and then WE'RE READY TO BACKFILL.  "Floor on" was a great milestone, and I expect "backfilled" will be another great one.