Valleys, girl

Today we set up in the barn, the valley rafters that will become the kitchen roof. It looks just like it did when I drew it up using sketchup. Mike could have done it all without the computer and sketchup, but even he'd have to admit that it was handy to be able to draw it all using the computer to calculate lengths and angles. We often found ourselves checking sketchup vs actual.

Whoops, wrong pic

Larry called last night to tell me that I must have posted the wrong picture. Those old ugly guys just couldn't be us. After some digging I found the right one.

Waterproof & Backfill

Larry and I worked all Sunday finishing the waterproofing on the below-grade concrete walls, then putting about 18" of gravel next to the waterproofing, then backfilling it all with dirt. We don't have enough dirt to terrace the yard as it will be when it's done, so for now it looks kinda like a big motocross ramp. Here is a glamor pic of us after our 12 hour Sunday. OMG, is that really what we look like??

Things are coming together

We finished the king post and braces for the bent that will span the middle of the living room. This is a picture of the right side, as I couldn't get far and high enough to take a picture of the whole thing. The posts are 16 feet apart. Then there will be 4 foot arcades on the outsides of the posts. The arcades are far from traditional, I realize. My hope is that they will serve not only as walkways around the seating area, but also as spaces to display and put stuff.

Timber frame update

I've been planing timbers the last two weeks. Not the most exciting work, but it will add someting to the finished frame. We're also working on the king posts. Here are a couple of pictures of work on the king post and cherry braces that will be over the middle of the living room.

Tyler and Dan

Tyler and Dan helped me for the past 7 days. Not sure how they did it. They worked with me the majority of the day, then after I went to bed they often stayed up until the wee hours of the morning catching crawdads in the creek. It was wonderful to have them here, not only for the work, but also for the good company.

Floor Trusses

We finished framing the ground floor. It took about twice as long as I though it would, which was par for the course. After confering with our HVAC guy about were we need to put the runs for the ductwork, I met with a truss company a couple of times to design floor trusses. They are 18" tall to permit a clear span of 24' over parts of Therese's studio, and to have adequate space to run the ducts in the trusses, so that the ducts don't hang down under the floor joists as they often do in basements. The trusses were delivered on Thursday afternoon, and we started installing them Friday afternoon. Tyler and his friend Dan did most of the work. I got them up at 6:30 over the weekend and we worked for 3-4 hours before heading to the lake. Then we worked on Monday and Tuesday and got all but 3 put up.

Them Chinese

It's been darn hot down here. We bought a 36" barn fan to help. It's a model "BCB-36-BDF." BDB stands for "big country breeze." We've decided that BDF stands for "big damn fan." And we thought the Chinese didn't have a sense of humor.