Framing and RAIN!

We live in Crescent City. It is no surprise that it rains here...a lot. But, August?! Come on now. So, needless to say, Monday was not spent working on the house. It was spent covering the house up. It sprinkled on Monday and dripped a little inside the house before we could get it covered up all the way. Tuesday wasn't so bad, just a thick, heavy fog. But Wednesday it decided to blow and rain. We had it covered up pretty well though and nothing got ruined...just a little wet.

Since things were covered up we were still able to get some work done inside the house. We now are framing the upstairs exterior walls for the windows.

The guys got the entire west wall framed:

And the entire north wall:

More progress.

Yes, we have still been working on the house, although you couldn't tell by looking at the blog...

Since my last post, Dana has finished laying the tongue and groove on the dormer over looking the living room:

The finished dormer from the inside - looking from the second story loft area.

Dad sanding for a smooth finish to lay the tongue and groove down.

That's me in the background standing on a load of tongue and groove - on the forklift approximately 25 feet in the air!

Dana and Leonard nailing down the tongue and groove on the shed dormer.

Working until late, as always!

Here are Dana and I standing on top of the forklift again...scary.

Especially considering this is the crazy guy running the thing!!

We finished out the week by cutting off all of the long pieces of tongue and groove all around the house. Next step: roofing and framing in for all of the windows and doors!

Finishing out the week

Thursday and Friday were spent nailing down the pine tongue and groove. The guys completed the front of the house, sans one dormer and part of the back of the house.

The main part of our crew for the week. Frank, Dennis, Tim, Gus, Dana and Will. The guys all worked really hard and got done a lot more than we ever expected!

Day 3-Wednesday

Here are some shots of the progress we made on Wednesday.

Using the crane to set the beams to make the shed dormer along the back side of the house.


Building the dormers on the front of the house. This one is above my living room.

The view from the top!

Finally our last order of business for the day was to start nailing down the tongue and groove that will be my ceiling.

Tuesday-Day 2

Since we got the exterior wall logs completely up on day 1, we were able to move inside for day 2. Full logs sit on top of a ridge beam that runs almost the full length of the house. These logs are the ceiling for my two downstairs bedrooms, the bathroom, laundry room and kitchen. Above those logs goes tounge and groove pine. No drywall ceilings here...just wood!

Here are Tim, Gus and Frank working on setting the shorter glue-lam beam. This is looking from my kitchen toward my living room.

This picture is looking from the living room to the two downstairs bedrooms. Aaron is standing about where my staircase will be.
This picture is looking from the living room into the kitchen. To the right of the kitchen is the laundry room, then the bathroom and finally in the back corner is one bedroom.

Here Dana, Dennis, Aaron, Gus and Tim are racing to get the tounge and groove nailed down above those logs.

Here you can see the top of the tounge and groove which will be the base for my second story floor.

Yes, I work a little bit too! :)

Using the crane to set the main ridge beam in the house.

Setting the logs that create our "trusses".

These are the logs that make up our roof system.

The view at the end of day 2.

Bonus Day 1 pics

I know everyone is grumbling at me, because I have not been so good about posting this week. I've been a little busy. Here are some more pictures from day 1.

The Gradall is a wonderful piece of equipment...it made our job so much easier and faster. We had each course of logs stacked up together, so Dana was able to grab those logs with the fork lift and place them in the center of the foundation. Then the guys could just pick up the log they needed and put it on the wall where it needed to go.

Dad and Dennis stapled all of the gasket foam in between the logs.

Once we got to the higher courses of logs, we had to use the crane to set the heavier logs.

Using the crane to set one of the glue-lam beams. You are looking at my dining room and kitchen.

Log construction 101: Day 1

I loved to play with Lincoln Logs as a kid. I stacked those logs so many times making different houses. I realize that playing with those logs so many years ago should have given me a little insight into what I'm dealing with today. Little did I know...

We spent all day Saturday sorting through logs. They are all numbered as to where the go in the walls of my house. Each row of logs is referred to as a "course". So you start with course 1, all the way up to course 14. The logs were a jumbled up mess when we started. Courses 1-10 were all mixed together and bundled up in about 5 different stacks. Courses 11-14 were also all mixed up in their stacks. By the time we were done on Saturday we had each course stacked in it's own little pile.

We placed courses 1 & 2 on the foundation so the logs were just right there ready to be screwed down. We put the other courses in order close to the foundation so that Dana could just lift them on to the foundation with the forklift.

Monday morning two guys from the log home dealership showed up to help us re-assemble all of these logs. They told us that someone would have the job of finding each log that they would need. We told them that we all ready knew where they were, but they didn't quite believe us. They then told us that on the first day you only get 3 courses set up...4 if you're really lucky. HA! We got all 14 courses set! I don't think they knew how hard we work. We've got an awesome crew. The guys from the log home place are Tim and Gus. Then we had my dad, Dana's dad, Dana, Aaron, Dennis, Dana's mom and me. My mom stayed home to cook a nice big dinner for us all! Everyone had their own assigned job and everyone was hurrying to get ahead of the next guy. We had a nice little competition going between everyone and as a result we got a LOT done. So basically we got 2 days of work done in 1 day. Hopefully we can keep this pace going all week.