Bringing Coal to Newcastle

Here Joe is rolling on wood sealer since the floor is going to be exposed to the weather for a while. If you look below him you can see what we'll see when we look up in the kitchen.



Last week saw the arrival of our large rough-sawn lumber delivery from Heath Lumber. They supply a mixture of native spruce and hemlock. The conventional stuff we be using thus far is primarily Canadian eastern spruce with engineered lumber and plywood from god-knows-where, so it is great to have this next portion of our house being built out of lumber with this integrity. I see our house as sort of a hybrid of standard lumber yard stuff with locally milled and supplied material. To do it again, I'd probably up the percentage even more towards the local stuff, but I'm good with the decisions so far; the I-joists are strong without the use of a lot of material (they span 22' unsupported in our house) and they provide an efficient use of poor-quality wood.

The delivery of the rough sawn allowed us to get busy again on the second floor, leading to work on the roof starting this week. To complete the second floor, Joe and I built the floor over the kitchen. This framing will be exposed when the house is done, so you'll look up and see the floor joists and the 2x6 tongue-and-groove flooring overhead. The lumber was really nice to work with and we had a good time finishing off that little project on Friday.

Over the weekend Nancy and I started priming and painting lumber that will be used in building the roof. The more we can paint now while its on the ground the better. It'll take way more time to do the same work once it's in place.

The weather has been so good for so long its been just a godsend. As I write this on Sunday evening it is raining steadily and the week ahead looks a little dicey. I hope we'll be able to navigate through it and still accomplish what we need to do. Nance and I have come up with a "bad weather" plan in case we need to divert from roof work.

"Da me los clavos!"

Yesterday morning:

Today:

Joe and I managed to get the framing for the second floor complete by this afternoon. As always, things go a little slower than I might guess, and we worked a slightly shorter day than usual today.

The LVL beams were complete yesterday and we managed to get a few I-Joists in place before calling it quits. Today we completed the I-Joists, and then added squash blocks around the perimeter to transfer load down through the framing. More on this in an upcoming post.

So, the news is that the weather continues to be our friend and we keep plugging away.

I've become accustomed to listening to "the point", a pop radio station in the area. Typically, without others to consider, I'll have NPR on all day, but Joe's not such a fan of talk radio so we go with music. Sometimes I put on the I-Pod which breaks it up a little. Its good for me to break out of my habits a little. To my surprise this music station seems to have delved into my brain and delivers music that I really dig a large proportion of the time. Hats off to any commercial radio station that I feel even marginally complimentary of.

First Floor Complete

Monday Joe and I raised the last wall of the first floor and today we buttoned up the loose ends, including blocking in the basement, completing the wall sheathing, and taping the remaining zip seams.

Tomorrow morning we start on the second floor, first with the LVL beam and then hanging floor joists, just as we did on the first floor deck.

This photo shows the completed walls, insofar as I can capture it from the garage roof.

This shows the view over the house. Joe and I will get to experience this as we start work on the second floor.

The First Floor

The first floor deck flew up quickly, and but for a bit of rain and me catching up on structural questions, we might have actually had it all sheathed yesterday. No worries, as I'm happy with how things are moving along, and if anything it feels like the project is moving faster then I would've guessed and I need to mentally re-adjust to the requirements of being both builder and planner.

Here's a few photos from the last few days.