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Weather and Decks and Roofing

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The spring weather is always mixed here in the Pass. We had 12˚C one day and blizzards the next. We managed to get the front completely finished and even threw on the deck. Here you can see one of those places where mistakes have been made. Not buy us though - it was the truss company. One thing I learned through all of this is to not assume the engineer (?) at the truss company understands your drawings. There have been a few errors on their part now and we've just had to adapt as we go. Well... in all fairness, we probably could have corrected this if we caught it earlier. The pilings for the center post were in the right place and so is the foundation - no problem. When I went to put up the post, it was not centered under the gable. WTH? I checked my measurements, looked at the drawings and the everything seemed to check out. Then I measured the gable again. It turns out that if you take a close look at the drawings, the gables isn't centered over the doorway. It is centered...
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Roof Sheathing is Done

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OK - the roof sheathing is done. Now it's time for a beer.
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Windows and Doors and Roofs, oh my!

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It's been a while since I've thought to update our progress (again). If you want to get an update as soon as I post something, make sure to "follow" this blog using the settings provided. We are actually farther along than shown here but Sarah didn't want to come and take photos today. I'll try and get a few more pictures up shortly so you can see what it looks like with a roof! We're almost ready for our framing inspection (I hope). I have to talk to the inspector on Monday to book an appointment and see what exactly he expects us to have done. We're rolling into the next phase soon so I've been talking with electricians and plumbers - time to get services! We have all of the windows and doors in now, except for the basement and the man-door in the garage. We have to wait until the cement layer pours the basement and garage floors. Bit too cold to do that right now - we would just end up with settling or frost heaves. The top photo shows the great...
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Timbers and Trusses and Windows, oh my!

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It has been a while since I've posted anything. We've made a lot of progress in the past few weeks, that's for sure. The cold and wind have been pretty tame for the past few weeks, which is great. That always seems to be our biggest hold up. I'm going to attach a ton of photos so you can see the change. One of the first big things is that we have all of our big timbers standing. This was critical in order to be able to move forward as they support key sections of the house. The main column in the front carries both a cantilevered bedroom and the main beam over the garage, which in turn carries an awning. I originally wanted to try and get a bunch of Passholes to lift up these beams on ladders but finally wisdom prevailed and I hired a crane. These beams are 12" by 6" and the two long ones weigh about 300lbs each. That's not something you want to mess with while on a ladder. This is some custom hardware that we made up with some 4" angle iron, some 1/4...
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Second Floor Well Underway

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It's amazing how fast we're moving along considering the wind and the weather. We have about 75% of the second floor framing done and now we're heading into a holding pattern because of materials. The guy that is cutting the big timbers had a problem with his forklift and so he hasn't worked for over a week now. In reality, we only need two of them to support the cantilevered corner of the spare room out front. You can see my fantastic, improvised support post right there in front. Maybe just don't walk on that part of the floor upstairs quite yet. This is a close-up of the west wall and one of my favorite details. It's just a cantilevered window and seat in the middle of the stairwell but it looks really great. There you will have a view of Turtle Mountain as you come up the stairs. We are also waiting for windows. Durabuilt simply won't give a delivery date until the order is done. It's amazing to me that a manufacturer has such little faith in their o...
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First Floor Framing Fini

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We're about 95% finished the first floor framing! Things are going really well, except for the weather. The two weeks before Christmas brought -30˚ C with horrendous windchill. We took the better part of that time off. Everything is harder when you are working in the cold and snow. It's a constant battle to keep your materials and the site clear enough to move around. I wish we had been able to start in August, like I originally planned but you can't have everything. One thing we have to deal with is the snow plows. The keep on plowing up a big snowbank right across our driveway. I made a friendly little sign that seems to have done the trick. One of our future neighbors, Les, has a quad with a blade attachment and he has been kind enough to level the site for us. I think it's about time to buy a snow blower anyway. Our current place gets these cement-like drifts in the lane and it's almost impossible to clear it with a shovel. We're in the mountains now! You ca...
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House Framing is Underway

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We managed to get about half of the first floor framing done before the bad weather set in. It has been about -25˚ here with about -600˚ wind chill for the past week. We were really lucky up until the second week of December – the weather was gorgeous. You can see the front and the space where the garage is going to be on the right. I was all high fives about our progress but now I'm all Debbie Downer that I remember we haven't touched the Garage yet. It should be interesting trying to get that all level.  At the front here you can see the office window. It's actually a bit bigger than it looks but I have to cut the sheathing back on the bottom edge. There will be a covered porch with 8x8" fir columns across the front of the house. We're trying to sheath the  frames while they are laying flat as much as we can. In some cases it just doesn't work but that's what ladders are for. On the left side here you can see where we framed in the stairwell landing for t...
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