Overall: We enjoyed dry weather all week, and were able to reach a milestone; completing the rough framing for all of the walls on both building structures. An Amish framing crew has been hired to set the roof trusses and install the plywood sheathing to complete roof framing. They are scheduled to arrive Monday morning, August 22nd.
Monday: Continued effort by Kyle to frame the interior walls of the house. Kermit and I got the west half of the breezeway formed and ready for concrete tomorrow. The plan is to squeeze a concrete truck between the 2 structures (12 feet apart) to reach the west end of the breezeway. The breezeway is 32 feet east-west, and there are not enough chutes on a concrete truck to place material more than 15-20 feet. We need that concrete poured and placed so trusses can be installed over the breezeway next week. The plan is to pour the east half after the roof framing crew completes their task.
Tuesday: Concrete poured and finished for the breezeway west half. We were able to get concrete in the early morning while the temperature was still cool, making it easier on two old men. Kyle is finishing up interior walls for the house. Built the beams to support breezeway truss headers. Installed the 10 ft span garage door glulam header. Roof trusses ( 77 trusses – quite a pile) were delivered to the site today
Wednesday: Placed the enormous glulam beams that span the pair of 16′ garage door openings. Neighbor and friend Mike B. brought a tractor w/front loader to save time and our backs. A bit of McGyver engineering was developed and employed to overcome the loader’s inability to raise the header to the installed height.
Thursday: Installed OSB on the east garage wall. Installed both breezeway headers. Performed a string check on the house. This involves driving 2 nails at each exterior wall corner precisely at the inside edge of the upper plate. A string is tightly stretched from one corner to the next, creating a perfectly straight reference line for each exterior wall. The next step entails “tuning” each wall by physical persuasion and 2 by 4 braces until the upper plate is perfectly aligned with the string along the entire length of each wall. This seemingly small, but significant detail makes the task of installing roof trusses much quicker and easier and will be appreciated by the crew on Monday morning.
Friday: Completed rough framing for the shop’s interior walls. We repeated the upper plate string check for the shop. Four pallets (225 total sheets) of 4′ by 8′ plywood were delivered today to be installed next week as roof sheathing.
Saturday: The day was spent on moving preparations from the current home to the next rental/leased home.
Sunday: Repeat of Saturday. Two men and a truck are scheduled to move the stuff we can’t (or won’t) – i.e. sofas, mattresses and other large furniture. That happens Friday August 26th. Getting this significant, unwelcome distraction behind us will bring a genuine sense of relief, so we can focus completely on construction once again.
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