Exposed Cedar Beams...

A couple of days ago the special order cedar and 2x6 pine tounge and groove material came in for the front porch.  Today they got to the big moment to put all this up.  I had been led to believe that this was all going to be a cake walk and they had it all figured out...   Well, in the end, we all stood there with tape measures and pencils and tried to figure this thing out... Turns out, that the beams were fine, but the spacing didn't quite work out over the front stone area, and thus would look uneven from the outside.  Now, I tried to convince them that sometimes things like this add visual interest...when your eye catches these things it causes you to look harder, and you end up seeing more details.  No go... 

So, after about 30 minutes, the decision was made that they would put a regular framed roof over this area, but hide the entire assembly with the cedar and pine...  What you see here is the result, or at least the beginning.  5 evenly spaced 4x6 cedar under the bigger 4x12 cedar ridge beam.  The outside of this area will get soffits and then the cedar will appear to extend out from the wall under the soffits, but in fact they will just be decorative. 

There are several advantages to this approach... They will use less cedar, less 2x6, and we stand no chance of nails penetrating from the roof down through the cedar.  There will also be a place to hide wires for lights.  Also, the roofer added concern that he needed a "rake" on the front to attach the tiles to so they wouldn't try to "roll" off the front.  So, in the end, I think everyone is happy. 

And, it's georgous!!

From this next picture you can see they have now put osb all the way up the gable.  The soffits will be on in the morning, I'm sure.

The shape of this looks much better now and not so goofy, but remember this whole assembly will be covered in real stone, so it will look a lot more substantial.  (and the window will appear to shrink, which it should)

Top view... Yes, I climbed up on the roof.  It's actually quite pleasant to walk around up there, only a 5/12 pitch makes you feel pretty safe.  But, even though it's just a single story, it would be best to have nobody fall off...

Looking about 45 degrees left from the last picture, sighting over the higher portions of the roofline.  There are a lot of ridges and valleys.  I like it this way, breaks things up.  The weather today was just on the verge of misting all day.  Not cold, but certainly not dry.  Tonight we missed a HUGE band of thunderstorms which cut just north on the radar...  Last thing we need here is more rain.

Here, the cupola over the Master Bath is started.  Looks cute so far...

Ah, but at the end of the day, I don't like it as much.  Starting to look like they are going to oversize the soffit on this cupola too much.  I will meet them early AM tomorrow and have them shrink the overhang down a bit on this. 

It kills me to interfere in what they are doing, but these little things can bug you to death, and it's very easy to correct it now.

Tomorrow is a big day... 

First, have to have the cupola meeting, which means out there early...  Then, have to assemble the pocket door frames (5 of them), then haul a load of trash to the dump, then off to storage to get the window wrap and some more tools, then back to sample wrap a window for the guys to follow. 

The window wrap, or flashing, is more complicated than normal, because I am trying to tend to the recessed ledge at all 4 corners, and keep that area from leaking in addition to the window opening itself.  So, we are using a fairly expensive product that allows you to "flex" it around the corners.  Probably overkill, but I am trying to be prudent.

OH, then work all night tomorrow night, after I pick up some fireplace parts on my way into the city... 

Windows are coming Thursday about the time I get back.  Exterior doors too perhaps.  I will want to fall into a pile at some point that day...

Have a great day...

Framing Progress

Sorry you have been clicking on this blog without an update in a while...  I've been busy, and it's far beyond the reach of just the house.  I've been on the road some, work demands, and also tax time.

Regardless, the framers have been pretty busy.  Here is a shot from about a week ago when they had just framed the chimney "chase".  This will get a little hip roof on it and will be tiled.  Take a mental note of what things look like here, in a few pics, you will see progress.

This is the rear corner of the back porch.  They have begun to frame in the soffits here, which they call the "cornice."  Note that the outside edge of the cornice doesn't run straight up and down, but rather perpendicular to the rafters themselves.  My roofing contractor likes this, because it helps keep water out of the framing as it drips off the edge, and allows the "drip edge" to work better.  Personally, I think it's going to cause be grief when we install the gutters.  A google search reveals a solution for this, however, as they make little brackets to correct the gutter so it hangs straight... 

This still looks goofy, but it's getting there.  I thought that the left leg looked skinnier than the right, but my tape measure reveals that's not the case.  In addition, the window above what will be stone arches looks too big, but you have to subtract out 11 inches in both height and width to account for the stone that will be inside it.  I didn't realize they were going to frame in the "flare" on the stone, but they did.  At the top of this will be a gable roof that will have exposed cedar beams and decking.

More soffits...  The material you see by the way is a concrete material, it is not wood.  The concrete board isn't worth much structurally, but as a facia on a soffit it is perfect.  The concrete, once painted, is much more stable, holds paint better, and is rot and termite proof.  They have to use a special blade to cut it, and also a special nail.  You have to use a nail gun unless you want to predrill all the holes. 

The soffits in Texas are normally vented to the attic.  Normally they vent them so the air can enter at the roof eves, then run into the attic and vent out the ridge in an attempt to keep the attic temps as low as possible.  A much more energy effecient system is to use a "sealed" attic design, where foam insulation is applied to the space between and over the roof rafters and seals the entire attic.  This does lots of things..

1.  Encapsulates the ductwork, and thus the duct leaks.

2.  Makes the house much more airtight, so you don't have the latent load of constantly condensing moisture out of the air that leaks into the conditioned space.

3.  Allows the ducts and cooling equipment to operate inside the conditioned space, with less energy losses.

4.  Since we don't usually have basements in Texas, our attic storage now becomes air conditioned (the heat in a vented attic space can easily approach 180 degrees F)

5.  Allows exposed plumbing and other equipment in the attic protection from heat and freezing.

6.  Reduces the ceiling joist temperatures, and thus the ceiling sheetrock temperatures, which improve comfort in all seasons.  (raises sheetrock temps in winter)

I could go on...

Note that these soffits are not flat on the bottom either, but angle up with the slope of the gable  (just on certain parts of the house).  I think they look better this way, and my wife absolutely despises when the soffit has a "return" on them.  So they don't.

Some shots of the rear... Sans all the walkways and bracing, which is mostly gone now.  Looks much better.  Yes, the little posts look kind of puny, but they are 4 inches square and can hold an incredible amount of weight.  They will be surrounded by cantera columns, which are hollow in the middle, so they had to be small enough to fit inside the cantera. 

The arches look good I think, and the entire porch is going to do an excellent job of shading the windows...  When you buy your lot, PLEASE do a good job of picking one out that allows you to properly orient your house in relation to the sun.  Ideally, you want a little sun into the windows in winter, and not in the summer (unless you are a Yankee, then you accept more sun).

This is the little porch that extends out the back of the garage.  You can't see it from the street, but it does precisely two things...

1.  Squared off the rear of the house, eliminating an extra ridge and valley in the roofline, and more covered space. 

2.  Gives us a covered area to store our garbage cans.  Yes, laugh if you want, but trash cans inside the garage are just nasty, and if you leave them out where everyone can see them, well, that's nasty too.  So this way we can access them even when it's raining, and pull them to the street (almost 200 feet away) without having to drag them through a gate or door. 

This garage door is about a foot shorter than the others.  I was going to make it only the size of one of those little golf cart doors, but nobody could decide on what dimensions of doors were proper and available, so I changed it to a smaller single door standard size (8 wide 7 tall).

Finally, back to that same shot from the rear of the house.  Roof decking is on in many places, and my guess is now they can work on the chimney a lot easier by just walking up there, so soon the rest of it will be done.

Oh, by the way, over the garage and porch areas we are NOT sealing the attic.  It makes no sense to pay to heat and cool that extra space, so to keep those areas from getting excessively hot (that's a loose term for us in the summer) we are using radiant decking and vented soffits in those areas.  The shiny underneath surface of the radiant decking has a low ability to "emiss" heat in the form of radiant energy, so it can't transmit heat effeciently downward, and leaves the garage and porch attic areas slightly cooler.  A lot of builders use this everywhere in the attic, and then vent the attic (and claim hero status), but when compared to a sealed attic design in terms of energy, the radiant decking is a joke.  I would say realistically, on the hottest day, you are dropping your attic temp from 180 degrees down to 160 degrees, and perhaps not radiating as much energy into the ceiling joists, but I stand firm that a sealed attic design is the ONLY proper choice.

Also, the transition from sealed attic to vented porch/garage is done at kneewalls that are built into the attic.  The framers did an excellent job of covering these kneewalls with OSB so they can foam these from the inside.  I have to make super sure I get all the wires I need (outdoor speakers, lights, etc) into the porch area before they put the ceiling trim in, as it will be my last access to that area EVER.

The cedar also came for the front entry, corbels, and window awning.  This is the ogee that they cut into them.  I wasn't there when they did this, but I am happy with the pattern.  This will be the ends of the rafters that you see.  The freshly cut cedar smells yummy.  These are 4x6 beams, and the top beam will be a 4x12.

Ok, in case you are wondering how we can afford this house... Here is the answer, especially for you young ones trying to figure out how to manage your money and your life...  This truck is the first new car we ever bought, and we still own it.  In 23 years of marriage, we have bought 3 new cars total, and only 3 cars total, and we still own, drive, and maintain those same 3.  We last bought furniture about 12 years ago (yes, we need some more)  We also don't smoke, drink (ok, maybe a beer at a superbowl party), get fired, get arrested, or do drugs...ever.  Girls and boys, pick your spouse wisely, and once you find them put enough work into your marriage to stay that way.  Pay yourself first, invest your money, finish your education and then get some more.  Ladies, stay out of the mall.  Guys, stay out of the bars.  Always stay out of the casino.   Mow your own grass, or have your lazy kid do it. 

Wow, I'm going crazy...  OK, I'll stop.... 

My dad helped me with some really nasty trash after they left a lot of black plastic in the trash pile.  We are hauling off our own trash.  It saves money, but more importantly, gives me a reason to be there all the time.  Speaking of, the board pile has grown significantly.  We went out today and organized the good board pile, but the trash boards need sorting...

and yes, the truck came clean with a quick 4 quarters worth of pressure washing.

Later this week...  Window flashing, windows, and hopefully finish the framing.   Met with the roofer to go over the roofing underlayment options, and a 3 person mutual decision to use a storm guard rubberized membrane.  I was skeptical about the black color, and wanted something reflective or light color to reduce radiant emissions from the tile to the roof deck, but the products that are available aren't nearly as tough and water tight as the storm guard (it will not ever leak, and I don't want to ever see it again after the tile is down), and for the extra cost of adding a radiant barrier between the tile and roof deck I can just add more insulation on the underside of the roof.  Clay tile also does a better job of staying cool than concrete tile, as I understand it is a better insulator than concrete.  There is also an air space between the tile and the membrane, and even though heat transfers convectively and radiantly, it is far less than what would transfer in terms of conduction between the traditional Texas black asphalt shingle and the roof deck...  Texas people, please stop using black asphalt roofs on your homes (the history on this, by the way, is that the black color matches the mildew that will soon form, but it costs you thousands of dollars in energy bills).  Please put on a tile or metal roof, preferably one light in color.  If you must use asphalt shingles, select a lighter color.

Sorry, rant over...

I'd better go to bed...I'm grouchy.

More Roof Progress

First of all, it was pretty late before I got out there today, but when I did I was surprised to see a generator in the driveway and an extra truck...  Well, they had increased the size of the crew to more than I could count, perhaps 12 guys??  They couldn't run all the tools off of one outlet so they got out their generator for more power...  They actually could have tapped into the other breakers in the temp pole, but it is a funny looking 220 volt 4 point setup.  I suspect tomorrow they may rig something to use that side of the temp pole as it has a 40 amp breaker in it...

I digress, as usual.  Anyway, massive progress on the roof and down below too.  I love this shot because the house is starting to look like we intended it too, an Italian villa type house in the trees.  Probably that is very cliche to say, but I personally think we are getting it pretty close.

Crawled up on the roof for a moment and looked around.  Any attempt to crawl much farther than what you see here would have resulted in me making an ass out of myself.

They are working on top of the Master Bathroom here.  This is a hip roof, so no gables on this part.  There will be a "cupola" on top of this eventually.

Looking West over the back of the house.

Now looking the same way but underneath the rafters.  This gives you an idea of the headroom for later...  With the 5/12 pitch there isn't really that much room, but you can still navigate from one end to the other.  They will probably install a catwalk through here eventually.

Back outside, the hip roof over the Master Bathroom.

Progress inside too.  They framed in the arch above some cabinets in the kitchen, which is right next to the barrel hallway.  Looks good to me.

Front of the garage.  Notice the smallish gable end here, the stonework will taper down off of this to below, and in it's center will be a large closed shutter, to fake a window.  I hate windows in garages that require window treatments, and then collect dust and bugs.  You have to leave the blinds closed or everybody looks right into your garage.  This way is SO much better.  The 2x2 windows to the left won't need covering, and will let in more light.  The fake window makes everything balance out across the front of the house.  I actually plan on buying some real operating shutter hardware, so when the shutters are mounted, they indeed will be real and operable.  Just always shut.

They also framed in the arch nooks next to the living room fireplace.  And above that they also framed in the coffers for that ceiling.  It turned out really good, but if I posted a picture it just looks like more 2x4's.  These coffers will actually just be drywall with bullnosed edges.  Inside will be cased in crown and then accent colored.  Giant huge fan hanging from the center.

Here it is again... Coming along.  You can click on the picture and it's much easier to see things. 

Tomorrow is a busy day.  The "cornice" is coming, which means the soffit material, as well as the OSB sheathing for garage and rear column arches on the porches.  I plan on being out there early to make sure that all gets parked properly, and then hauling off a load of trash.  Yes, the board pile has grown some...

Oh, the pocket door frames have arrived, and need to be assembled and installed.  I am debating on having the trim guys or the framers do this, or myself?? 

Also have to get some Cedar framing wood for the entryway.  Have to call around for that.  Have a great weekend!

Starting the Roof

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...

More Ceiling Details

Ok, going to try to write on TOP of the pictures today for a change...  Here is the groin hallway... COMPLETED....  The bottoms of the arches, where you see the little 4x4 posts, are 8 feet above the concrete.  The arches between those columns are 9 1/2 feet, and then the apex of the groin is about 11 feet.  I could not be more happy with how this turned out.  Wifey hasn't seen them in person yet, so she is itching to head out there in a minute and take a look...  What she doesn't know is that I am going to get her to help carry a very heavy fireplace down there and position it... he he...

....click on the picture and it gets big....

This groin is a tad larger than the others, and is in the inside Entry Foyer, it is also a little taller and more square in shape, about 12 feet at the apex. 

Circular double step ceiling in the Dining Room.  I like the way this turned out, but man is it way up there. 13 feet.  Should leave room for the trapeze act during dinner.

This is a decorative cathedral vault in the middle of the kitchen.  Although it looks like roof rafters, they are not, and the roof will be well above this part of the house.  That is a double 2x12 I think at the top.  We will have decorative wooden beams that mimick this pattern actually below the drywall, but they will be much heavier looking than this.  The center of this ceiling is directly over the center kitchen island.... hopefully... 

Finally, they put in the large beams that span across the garage to carry the tile roof load.  They also added an additional beam so they could cut out some of the I joists and give them more "run" distance on the attic staircase.  I blame myself for being a little passive on this one and making assumptions that someone had actually figured this out (plan stage, design stage, and material takeoff stage).  Anyway, it will work much better now and I suspect they will have this staircase in by today.

Thats it... Got to go load up the fireplace and get it out there.  Shipping weight was almost 800 pounds, but a lot of that was the firebrick (it's a click brick system, and the bricks go in later). 

Have a nice day. 

OH, it would be nice to hear some comments from some of you...  Good or bad.  I am curious too as to who is reading this and from where?  I can moderate the comments, but I never get any ;-(

Groin Ceilings

Here it is!!!!  We have been waiting for this moment for a LONG time.   One of the most exciting features of Villa Costo Mucho will be the Gallery, which runs from one end of the house to the other.  There are actually 5 groin ceilings in total.  One is in the front Foyer, which is where I am standing, the other 4 grace the Gallery and will each be cornered with 4 Cantera columns (12 columns total).  Between each column there is an archway, 18 inches wide, which the arches frame a rectangle, and then up inside that rectangle lies the groin ceiling itself... 

A groin is another name for a "Double Barrel" ceiling, which would be the footprint of two barrel ceilings intersecting perpendicular to each other. 

Now, what is so perplexing to me is how the math all works to make these happen...  First, to keep the arches between columns themselves looking correct, the "rise" needs to be the same.  In our case, this rise is 18 inches (all the other arches in the house are generally 8 inch rise).  So, from the 8 foot column, go up an addtional 18 inches and you are at the top of the column arches. 

One would think, then, that you could frame the groin by tucking in the next set of arches from the 8 foot tall corners, traveling straight up into space a fixed amount, say 15 inches, and then repeat the same arches from below....right???  Wrong....  It turns out that if you use the same radius from below, that the concentric arches from below now look to be at a different radius, and thus are not pleasing to the eye...  So the next arch radius up above has to be adjusted with a larger radius, which means the rise from left to right starts out at a larger number (17 inches in this groin), then decreases at center (15 inches), and then increases again to right corner.  To add great confusion, these groins are not square, but rather rectangles, so the short sides of the rectangle have yet another set of radius' which have to be worked out as well....

Oh, we aren't done yet...  Once these corner points and rise have been figured, the actual framing of the groin requires them to cut plywood arches that span diagonal across corner to corner, and meet up in the middle at the apex of the groin.  These are cut at yet another radius, because the span on these is longer yet.    It all has to work perfectly...

My deal with the carpenters was that they would frame one out, and then call us in for a look before they proceed with the others...  Turns out that day I was in Argentina instead, so my poor wife had to go out and make the call.  She was under great pressure...

Here is the view down the long axis.  You can see from this view why we used a larger "rise" on these arches than in the rest of the house.  Had we not, the groins would have been essentially hidden from view and the sightline down the hallway would have been obscured.  In addition, a shorter rise would have meant things would have looked funny from the sides, by funny I mean the ratio of space above the arches in the room to the space below.

I should add that the dimensions of the column bases were adjusted on the "fly" as we framed this all together.  Originally, we thought that 14 inches would be adequate to fit a 12 inch column and it's base, but this would mean no room for drywall and trim...  So, we had to adjust the column base positions and thus the framing overhead to account for a new dimension of 16 inches, but the rest of the house had to stay fixed.  We also had to do all this while maintaining centerline on the entryway door, the courtyard windows, and the doorway that leads into the study.  We were able to do all this by shifting one of the end walls of the gallery east 2 inches.  Unfortunately, this meant that now the column to column dimensions are not all the same, so the poor framers don't now have the luxury of using the same dimensions from one groin to the next, and have to recalculate each one seperately... 

The framers don't have the luxury of grid paper and a compass to figure all this out, they are using tape measures, plywood, and their intellect to figure this out.  The plywood in this case is 1 1/8 inch decking plywood, which is heavy and hard to cut in a radius.  (by the way, they cut the radius with their circular saw rather than using a reciprocating saw, it produces a smoother radius, and they lube the blade with WD40 as they cut to keep the blade from pinching).

To say I am amazed at their talents would be an understatement...  One day they are lifting a 900 pound beam 12 feet into the air by hand, and the next they are using some pretty tricky geometry skills to lay things out... 

Another view down the gallery.  This one shows the ground so it puts things in better perspective.  All the wooden walkways are temporary, and only the 4x4 posts will remain when they are done.  These posts will be surrounded by the stone columns.

This view is from the living room, looking back towards the dining room and foyer entryway.  You can see here that a more shallow arch would have looked too flat.  This ceiling is 12 foot and pops to 13 above me where it is coffered.  The dining room is similar, 12 foot with a 13 foot pop in a double stepped round.  It's all really quite cool...

Carpenters asked me for a bunch more of these joist hangars.  I just about croaked when I discovered the price of these and it's bigger brother ($57 each for the bigger one, which is special order and not even kept in stock, so Simpson has to make it special...a 20 day lead time)...  Forget it, they say they have something else figured out...

Last shot as I was walking away tonight.  As you can see the garage is not constructed of ICF, and thus looks pretty puny in comparison.  By the end of this week, I think you will see the remaining groins in place and the roof will be on.  They call the soffit material the "cornice", which will be mostly constructed of Hardi Concrete boards... I hate to repair and paint wood, and the Hardi board is awesome.  Doesn't rot, and holds paint a long time...

Yes, the trash pile is growing a little bit.  Thanks to my Dad last week we hauled off some really super NASTY "poly" that was coated in muck.  It was just coated in slop and we got it all over ourselves and my old pickup.  The concrete guys had piled it at the bottom of the trash pile, and it was keeping the whole thing from drying out.  These boards should be easy to get rid of in comparison...

Have a great week...

Beams....

Walls are mostly up.  They have the blocking in and a lot of the little decorative items done already.  A couple of days ago, the engineered "Big Beams" showed up.  These had to be shipped through the supplier to my local big box store, and then delivered again to the site.  It was everything that little delivery forklift could do for weight.  His rear wheel was uncomfortably light as he came down the driveway.  The heaviest of the beams I would guess weights close to 900 pounds??  It is 18 inches tall, 5 1/2 inches wide, and 24 feet long.  It took six guys to get it down through the yard, and then they had to hoist it into position by hand.  Can you imagine standing 12 feet up in the air on a 2x4 wall and recieving this beam from below by hand??

This particular beam in this picture is NOT that beam, this one is smaller, and it butts into another beam and will be joined with a joist hanger.  Sure is a pretty color beam against the blue sky.  If you ever come over, and you are standing in front of the cooktop or sink, you are standing under this beam and the thousands of pounds of tile above that it supports... 

Now we go outside.  This is the back of the garage, where the 4th garage door opens towards the little porch.  Much smaller beam which will rest on a corner column. 

These beams are in the Master Bedroom, and flank the barrel ceiling that will be framed above the bed.  That ceiling is now mostly framed, and these beams are joined together again by two more beams that were left over as a result of a little mixup between the beam senders and the carpenters...   Long story short, we had more beams than we needed, so they beefed all this up... 

This is a picture of one of three areas that had no place to rest a beam for support, so they cut into the ICF wall and placed a 2x4 into the wall which will support the weight down all the way to the floor.  They still need to add long tapcons to make this completely foolproof.  They even faced the outer edge with some plywood to make the wood even with the foam before it gets stucco.

Tonight we found out they delivered more lumber, another driveway full of it.  This lumber is for the roof rafters...  The longest board is a 2x8 that is 32 feet long, something like 6 of them.  Didn't even know they made a board like this.... 

They have most of the ceiling joists in place now, and tomorrow they start the groin ceilings...  They will have  a larger "rise" over the arches of 18 inches.  We like the arches better without the larger rise, but that would mean much less visibility from the dining room to the living room, as well as less sightline down through the gallery hallway, which will have iron hanging lights from each  groin.  All in all, 5 groins...  1 in the main foyer, which is slightly larger and taller than the other 4, which flow through the gallery.  The 12 interior columns will all be topped with additional arches that flow from one column to the next.  I will post some pictures if I get a chance and they get that far tomorrow...

Have a great weekend otherwise!