Tyvek On

The day after they got the framing done and the osb on the outside, they wrapped it in Tyvek, and we lost our windows ....

Walls Up, Windows Ordered

Costa and his 4 or 5 helpers put up the walls and put on the wall sheathing in 3 days. Would have taken Larry, Gary and me 6 weeks. During the framing the windows changed quite a few times. But we finally got them ordered last week. We're hoping to get them (and the siding) installed in early December. Here are pics of the house, without the brackets, eaves and gables. The 4 front windows look nice from the inside, will keep folks from looking into the living room from the road, and will permit us to put furniture below them (they're 4' from the floor and about 4' from the ceiling). But from the outside they increase the "church" or "schoolhouse" look. Therese says we can "fix" that with tall shrubbery. Ah, the ageold question -- do we want it to be good for the Ramseys inside, or look good for the Jonses from on the outside. Hmmmmm.

Bracket Boys

Over two weekends Larry, Gary and I cut and put together the eave and gable brackets that will hold up the roof overhang. The timber frame doesn't extend out beyond the walls, so we need brackets. They kinda look like the fancy wood posts some folks put their mailboxes on. (For those of you who live in the city, folks who don't (live in the city) have a mail box on a post by the road.)

There are 38 brackets and 16 rafters (including 1 custom bracket in which Gary drilled an extra set of holes in the side before he'd had enough coffee to drink).

All in all it took three grown men about a hour to cut and assemble one bracket. Not much time for fun either weekend, except for the fun of working together (sappy but true). You can see the eve brackets behind Gary in his solo pic. They likda look like toy soldiers all lined up.

Mo dirt wok

Huey and two others (one or both of whom live on "Slow Tom Road" -- not sure if one had to drive slow on it or Tom was slow) spent a couple of days diggin and moving dirt around the back of the house. It makes a big difference. Hope Therese likes it.

roof decking

We had 3 good days this week without rain, so we got the 1x6 tongue and groove decking on the rafters.

Frame Done, Time for Roofing and Walls

All the rafters are up, and now if it quit raining we'll start on the roof and windows. Here are some pictures of the completed frame.

Forget the frame, Mickey D's is coming!!

Word on the street is that McDonalds is coming to Huntsville next Spring. Not a big fan of McDonalds, but I like the notion that Mickey thinks Huntsville is big and growing enough for them to build a store.