Where there's a will...

I never thought I'd say it, but having a very busy life has been good for this blog.  Most often there's just no time to burden you with the head-scratching that went on.  All that makes it onto this blog are the PROGRESS reports.  

We've been struggling with how to make tongue & groove in the 2x6 boards that will cover the 1500+ sq ft vaulted ceiling. The theory is that overlap will camoflage any shrinkage that may happen after the boards are up.  Several ideas came up and were struck down.  Final answer:  cut shiplap with a dado blade on the tablesaw.  Great idea until the tablesaw sucked too much hydro and the breaker had to be reset about 3 times for every 14' board.  There's no way anybody here was willing to make 1000 trips to reset the breaker before this was done.  Final answer:  where there's a redneck will, there IS a REDNECK way. 

The 5.5 hp Honda engine was borrowed from our gas powered air compressor.  It was a pretty simple fit, to run the belt to the Honda instead of the 110 v motor.  Only hurdle was that the two power sources turned opposite directions...not much of a challenge to compensate for that.  (Says the family typist who heard about it after the fact and had nothing to do with the solution!) 

Today I can report that the varnishing is still in progress, but the shiplap is all cut, freeing Dennis to start putting the main floor into the house.  It feels like a huge step to be back in the basement hole, working directly on the house. 

Have I said the SIP's are on order and we're tentatively talking about being ready to raise the frame in mid-August?

Major Milestone!!

Thursday, July 1 :  The day Dennis cut the joinery in the last 3 timbers!!

Yes!  The frame is cut!  All 146 pieces.  Sorta like this picture, but not assembled yet, and obviously, a WHOLE lot bigger.

Not only is it done, we're within 10 days of Dennis's original estimate of "completion in 6 months IF it goes WELL".  As all do-it-yourselfer's know...stuff happens sometimes often, and I'm not referring to the good stuff here.  So share the moment with us before our attention turns to the next step: the outer layer. 

We need to have everything ready and onsite to close in the house before we undertake frame raising day.  The biggest part of this is figuring out the best way to cut tongue & groove into 270 pieces of 2x6, writing a cheque to the guys building our SIP package and arranging crane rental for the duration of the raising.