Another day of progress... vacation for the win!

Literally chipping away at it... here's another of those posts I milled with my chainsaw last summer. The downside to hand-milled lumber is more chisel-time when I try to use off-the-shelf framing hardware. No big deal though, and I like the way the carved recesses look.

The second breezeway beam. This one turned out to be a HEAVY piece of timber: super dense and strong. I'm glad to have this sketchy bit of lifting out of the way. I tied the rope around the beam to keep it from falling on me if I fell off of my chintzy little ladder balanced on a springy piece of plywood over the trench. Yeah, sketchy.

I ended up lifting this beam twice. See that little notch at the lower end pointing down? Yeah, that's supposed to point UP to clear the top plate. I realized this when I had it all the way up and it wouldn't fit correctly. Deep breath... sigh... reverse the steps, flip it around, and do it again. 

This guy came wondering through while I was in the midst of frustration. Banjo. Cool name for a cool dog. Super nice and friendly; turned the whole mood around.

Right side up this time, and getting it done.

Up the hill at the end of the day. Starting to be able to see a real house in there... but there's plenty of work to do yet.

more second floor framing

I got the rest of the rim joists and blocking for the garage in place yesterday... on to framing the breezeway next.

I'm liking the way this looks.

This is one of the 6x6 posts I milled with my chainsaw last summer, from one of the little doug-fir trees I felled while clearing the hillside to prepare for Diablo's fall.

Getting the first of the breezeway beams into place. It gets pretty interesting lifting the heavier pieces of this building into place overhead when I'm working alone. I'm finding that, if I can just map out the intermediate steps and plan in resting points, I can get some pretty heavy beams into place as long as I can nudge one end  at a time upward. This one was sort of challenging because I didn't want to put any unnecesary nail holes in the post that would be exposed later.

 

There it is... the first breezeway beam nudged into place.

It's time to move on to the second breezeway beam and setting the rest of the floor joists tomorrow. I'm shooting for having the entire second floor framing complete by the end of the weekend.

Quick update today... chipping away at the second floor framing.

Of course, I positioned an anchor bolt to fall perfectly in line with a joist. ...so I cut away the interfering wood and made it fit. Chipping away at the framing, bit by bit.

I noticed a huge paper wasp nest as I was taking a break... I resisted the urge to poke it with a stick.

I got a rim joist in place and a handfull of floor joists squared, spaced, and nailed in place. Almost ready to start adding the second floor deck!

Another view... once again, just because I like angles.

One of the realities of putting in lots of sweat equity and paying as you go: you can actually own your house at the end of a relatively short pertiod of time. No gigantic 30-year mortgages here.

Another reality of that approach: sometimes you run out of money and have to step back from building to make some more... I just finished one of those phases. It's a relief to not be so close to zero, and also a relief to be hammering some nails again...

I scheduled this week off of work to get things moving again. I've got a good start in the first two days, but I'm definitely feeling the race with winter heating up. I need to make some epic progress in the next five days to stay in the running.

Kicking things off right with some dutch oven goodness. It adds a little liveliness to a one-man construciton site to have a bit of awesome-smelling goodness bubbling away off to the side... a little bit of hearth makes it feel a little bit more like home.

I was wishing I had built the two footings in the breezeway, between the garage and where the house will eventually be, when I was doing the rest of the concrete work. It would have been minutes to fill these forms then. Now, it was a good half of a day of mixing bagged concrete mix in a wheelbarrow and building these footings. Either way... I got it done and I'm moving on now. Learning the lessons but not dwelling on it too much.

A little fun with my rebar bender. These bars hooked through the column base and tied it into the footing below.

The dutch oven has been fun. A handful of charcoal briquettes kept this pot of food simmering for over four hours. The pork fell apart when I touched it with a fork.

Footing number one. This one took six 80-pound bags of concrete. That's a lot of hand-mixing. I'm just a little irritated that I didn't square the column base more precisely with the concrete... another instance of learning the lessons but not dwelling on them. 

Footing number two. This one fell just about in line with my sewer pipe, so I had to dig it down about three feet to allow room to route the pipe past it later.

Finally finishing the stairs a month later. Here's a progress shot.

...and some more progress. Getting close.

I finished the stairs with plenty of daylight to spare. Now I'm ready to start nailing the second floor framing in place tomorrow morning.