Actually, they started yesterday, but I just kept it a secret from you. This is how it works... The brave carpenter looks at the plan, gets out his measure and pokes around a bit, then he pulls out his pitch calculator, crawls up on top of all the ceiling joists and beams, and tacks a couple boards in the middle of thin air. Seconds after that a larger board magically appears into "space" at precisely the place where the top of the roofline will be. Repeat the adding board process several hundred times... you get the picture.
There is a lot of things I know about, but this one is a mystery to me. The carpenters I think kind of chuckle at me when I pull out my flimsy little tape measure to look at things. They are SO much better and faster at laying things out that I ever will be. They are also much more precise... They always use a square and mark everything perfectly.
These boards you are looking at are 32 feet long... I think the corner one is a 2x10 and the lions share of the roof is made from 2x8's. You can imagine they are not light. They have a system where they call for boards of certain dimensions and the crew below cuts out everything before it is handed up.
I bet you from the North are jealous of that blue sky... It was actually a bit chilly today, though, as the last round of weather had some "nip" behind it. The crew was almost in short sleeves by the end of the day, though.
This is the back of the house, which doesn't have as many cuts as the front.
Framing into a valley here. I suspect the opposite of framing into a peak.
Front entryway still doesn't look like much, but trust me when I say this will be fabulous when they get it done. Met with the framing boss today and went over a list of items he needed.... Concrete bolts, Cedar beams, tongue and groove 2x6's, and of course more plywood.
The frame you see here will all disappear behind stone walls and will be topped with the aforementioned Cedar framing. The 2x6's will replace standard decking material in favor of it's look from below.
Still not super obvious from the street as to what you are looking at. Yes, I know that the concrete washout is still sitting there, but I am waiting on it to magically go away... Perhaps I should take my sledge hammer out there?
Living room fireplace... No, I didn't trick my wife into carrying that down there. The framers were nice enough to help. Took 4 of them plus me. I was lifting at the center of the bottom, and at one point, a bush got in the way of the guy on my right and he let go for a minute. I was shocked at how much more weight he was carrying than me.... The weight about poked me into the ground ;-) Anyway, this is a "click brick" system, which comes with real firebricks that click into the stainless steel liner system, and then get mortared into place. No visible metal when you are done. The chimney tapers off the top of the fireplace, and the framers as usual made that happen with grace...
Not sure if I ever posted a picture of the breakfast area, but this is the framed version from the back. It is the only place in the exterior walls of the house not ICF.
Barrel hallway that flanks the Powder Room. You can go go into this hallway, then into the Powder Room, and get powdered. Reminds me of a comedian that talked about this process, but he used language probably not appropriate for this blog ;-)
My wife will probably kill me (we were dressed for cold and rain and she thinks she looks like the unibomber here). I try not to include obvious pictures of people or names of anyone in the blog, just to keep everything neutral, but I wanted to show the scale of the Gallery. She is standing about 50 feet away from me. The 4x4 posts enter the ceiling at 8 feet high, and the groins top out at about 11 feet.
Maybe I will have more pictures of the roof tomorrow...
We have a meeting to look at some exterior door options tomorrow. Just as I was ready and insistent to use a couple of exterior Alder doors, my buddy came over and started telling me about problems he was having with humidity and climate changes messing his door up all the time, so we may have to seriously look at some fiberglass doors for these locations... I have a hunch that a "clad" style door like a Jeldwen would be maybe too much?? Don't know, though. Will have to make some calls...
We had a couple inches of snow yesterday, which came along with maybe 1/4 inch of rain. When the whole thing melted this morning the house of course fills back up with water. The ICF doesn't allow it to drain, so it pools where the slab is lowest, which in theory would be the showers... I have been siphoning these out when this happens with some tubing, but the showers have been filling up with mud, nails, sawdust, bird poop, and who knows what... Anyway, a couple of mouthfulls of that and I am still spitting out crap... Think I'll go brush my teeth and head to bed...
Have a great week...
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