The Elephant in the . . .

My wife Cheryl recently remarked this blog has basically become a construction progress chronicle. And she's right. Building the house has come to dominate our lives, pretty much as we knew it would. We still manage to eat out occasionally, watch DVD movies at night, play some music and visit with friends. But house building, paid work, basic housework, car repair and bill paying are the priorities. We have been falling off a bit on the housework lately when we come home beat from building. But we will survive a messy house.

To provide a little variety, the photo above is our little fruit tree nursery. Cheryl and I went to a tree grafting school and produced 20 grafts. The grafts are mixture of various apple varieties, some plums and pears. We had them in the basement (cellah around here) for several weeks until planting time. Most of the grafts were already starting to bud so it was time to get them in the ground.

Jayne is also quite busy with music theater. She is currently performing in "Guys and Dolls". Rehearsals for "Hair" will start soon after Guys and Dolls closes. She is also beginning the process of looking at colleges with an eye on a vocal performance degree, specifically opera. Part of the application process is a vocal audition for which she is preparing with her voice teacher. Auditioning has gotten much easier for her as she has now done several for theater
productions. Having received her GED with excellent scores (her graduation ceremony is June 2), she is now engaged in studying for the SAT. Aren't tests fun?

On to the house building. We accomplished much in April as you'll see from the pix. Starting to really look like a house. One of our best moves in this endeavor has been hiring an Apprentice/Construction Laborer to help us build. We chose a 26-year-old man named Brian who has turned out to be a real treasure. He knows his way around tools & building, is intelligent and enjoys engaging with us in figuring things out, and has a great sense of humor & easy-to-be-with personality. We're thrilled with him!

We decided to paint the floorboards before installation. This saved much neck pain and avoided getting paint on the floor joists. We had quite a little production setup to handle the painting. The floorboards were spread out on long 2x4's, supported by saw horses. With three of us painting, we were able keep up with the flooring installation needs.

The bottom (ceiling side) was painted Antique White wash to allow the wood grain to show through. The top side was painted with a primer to protect the wood during construction. Later we will apply a durable enamel, color to be named later.

Installing the flooring was a bit of a job. The flooring is 2x6 tongue and groove. Many of the boards were curved or twisted. Thank the Divine Presence for the Bow Wrench - that's the orange handle sticking out from under my hand. This is the tool have when dealing with curvy deck boards. It clamps onto the joist and gives you tons of leverage to bend virtually any board into place. We were happy campers when the last floor board was nailed down.
The result - a very stout floor indeed. And the white ceiling will reduce the "cave-like" feeling wood houses develop as the wood ages and darkens.




















At left, Cheryl is busy building roof trusses. There are 11 of them altogether. I've been traveling quite a bit lately so Cheryl and Brian have teamed up to fill the gap. They built and installed 11 floor joist and beam assemblies. They also built the first three trusses while I was out of town. They developed a well organized system to make sure the trusses were built right. When we installed them, they fit perfectly.

The picture above shows Brian fitting the truss over the "goal post" 2x4's that stick up through the floor. This joint is referred to as a mortise and tenon and is very strong. Sandwiching 2x lumber makes it easy to form mortise and tenon joints.

Our neighbor and landlord Andy came over last Saturday with the "Lull" to set the first three trusses. The Lull is a 4 wheel drive lift/loader that can handle just about any job. Brian thought the machine was really cool - no doubt! Andy is a commercial mason so he is no stranger to lifting and placing heavy things. His wealth of experience helped make the lift a piece of cake.

A vital part of framing construction is bracing. Until the sheathing boards are installed, the structure is vulnerable since nothing is really tying it together. We braced the truss to the floor and then braced the three trusses to each other. Once all the trusses are installed, which will happen this Friday, we will go back and adjust them for plumb and equal spacing. Then we check the walls to make sure they are square and plumb one more time before installing sheathing boards.

We are having fun doing this project it's very rewarding... so cool to watch a home coming to life in the beautiful Maine woods.