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Assembly of the timber frame started Monday, 12 October 2009.
Wednesday 28th October was an exciting day as we used a crane to lift the taller 'A' and 'B' walls and "fly in".the upper floor timbers. Friday, 30th October, the bundled trusses were delivered and placed on the roof. Thursday, 12th November, the roof sheathing is complete. Thursday, 4th December: The roof is on! Only three months late. Week of 7 December: An entire week of dry ( if cold ) weather. Imagine that! I'm using the week to process as much rough cut lumber as possible for use in building walls and floors. Tuesday, 8 December: First layer of dance floor planed. Gutters arrived today. One cannot fault Accurate Gutter Services for tardyness. Both times they've installed gutters for me, they arrived the day before they were scheduled. Wednesday, 9 December: Second layer of dance floor planed. We also have the majority of the boards for the wall and floor sheathing staged at the planer station, and have planed some. Thursday, 10 December: We discovered the pitch from our boards is getting under the planer blades. Enough to distort the plate which holds the blades flat to the spindle. Result: no more planing until replacement parts get here. We did get several hours of planing done before we were shut down. Wednesday, 16 December: It has warmed up enough to varnish the cut edges of the last three rake boards. In the meantime, I've been laying down the spring boards for the dance floor. It has been wet! When I get a dry spell, I'll get a progress photo taken. The planer parts arrived tonight. I'll put the planer back together tomorrow; then we wait for dry weather, again. Thursday, 17 December: Mostly dry today, so you get a new photo. Rake boards got more varnish. Started the spring boards for the center bay. Tuesday, 23 December: Spring boards in all three bays done. Spring board layer blocking for east and west walls is in and south wall blocking nearly done. North wall blocking remaining. Friday, 25 December: Spring board layer finished. There were an amazing number of small voids which became inaccessible after the spring board layer was installed over them. As they should have floor insulation in them, I took the time to fill them with insulation. I also put down extra boards to make a platform where the stairs will land and the fridge and freezer will sit. Not to mention the notorious blocking all the way round the edge of the floor to make a solid base for walls. Saturday, Boxing Day: About a third of the dance floor sleeper boards are cut and lying in place, but not secured. And, it warmed up enough to put the last coat of varnish on those last three rake boards. Monday, 28 December: Last of rake boards nailed up. Only a few more sleepers to cut. First few runs of sleepers have been screwed down. Thursday, 31 December: Dance floor sleepers are completed. Saturday, 2 January: Framed east and west walls of entry. Sunday, 3 January: Cut framing for east wall of bathroom. Wednesday, 6 January: Finished framing bathroom east wall. Monday, 11 January: Took off a few days to visit my mum. Now I'm back and ready to tackle the next wall. Monday, 18 January: Finished framing north wall of entry. East wall of lower floor started. Wednesday, 27 January: Finished framing downstairs east wall, along which the kitchen counter will run. Wednesday, 3 February: Finished framing eastern third of downstairs south wall. Now, both exterior doorways are framed. Of course, one can still walk through most of the walls. ;) My framing lumber is all rough cut; generally an eighth inch larger in width and thickness than the stuff you buy from the lumber store. I plane the sills and top plates to a consistent thickness ( 1-1/2 inch ) to ensure the wall height is consistent. Today, I also planed the sill and plates for the lower bay window. Saturday, 6 February: Framed west third of south wall. Didn't quite finish; I want to get the bay window in so I can scribe the top plates for length. Sunday, 7 February: All but upper cripple studs of bay window framing cut and laid out. Assembly of bay window framing starts tomorrow. Thursday, 8 April: Computer has been down. Only recently took time to get it up again; working on house in meantime. Completion dates for last two months are retrospective estimates. Record keeping only on the computer suffers when the computer is down. Still have photos to take of completed interior wall framing. Not shown on the schedule, and only indistinctly in the photos, is the structured wiring system. It took some time to research and install the first parts of it. More on that as more of it goes in. Thursday, 15 April: Been fighting the tax man. Been fighting to get a decent router table set up. The former is perennial, but I've finally got the latter figured out. The only thing needed is finding router bits that will stay eternally sharp. Friday, 23 April: Been to visit Mom. That killed three days. I've put enough boards down that I needed to tongue & groove more of the narrow boards. This morning's forcast looked dry enough to get at least some of them done, so I set up the equipment and started in. The sun actually came out for a while, so I figured I may as well keep going as long as it stayed dry. I managed to finish all the remaining boards, move them into the house, and start cleaning up preperatory to putting away the equipment when the rain started. After lunch, I cut and fitted more boards. Thursday, 6 May: Completed diagonal board diaphragm / lower room ceiling / upstairs subfloor. Saturday, 5 June: May: that was the wettest May in living memory! Since my last report, I've prepped the studs, trimmers, and cripple studs for the south wall; fired up the saw mill half a dozen times and milled a fair number of 2 inch thick boards; and built scaffolding so I can work on the outside of the upper walls. We got a neighbor to come over and help me raise the plates for the upper walls. You can see them in today's photo. They look as if they are laying across the top of the ladders. In reality, they are nailed into the rafters. Then, Barb and I framed the first of the upstairs windows, put it in place, and nailed in the two studs on either side of the window. Now that those upper plates are in place, the upper half of that south wall should go pretty quickly! Friday, 24 December: The photos tell the story, of course. I went away from the house project for most of September, October, and the first half of November to run some logs through a sawmill. Since then, it's been pretty wet around here, and building has been slow. Nevertheless, the sheathing/bracing on the west and north sides of the house is complete - except the last two boards on the lower north-east corner, which are cut, but still waiting for the last run of flashing before they can be nailed on - and about half of the south side is covered.. We put up some temporary windows in an attempt to keep snow out of the house until we are ready for real windows. I'll insert completion dates as they occur, and continue to slide out and reorder scheduled dates as necessary. Send me an e-mail if you need directions to our place. |
| Step | Scheduled Completion |
Completed | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cut joinery in South 'A' wall posts. | Fri 18 Sep | Thu 24 Sep | |
| Cut joinery in South 'A' wall plates. | Fri 18 Sep | Wed 23 Sep | |
| Cut joinery for arched braces. | Tue 22 Sep | Thu 24 Sep | |
| Cut braces. | Fri 25 Sep | Fri 25 Sep | |
| Cut joinery in North wall posts. | Sun 27 Sep | Thu 1 Oct | |
| Cut joinery in ridge over entrance. | Tue 29 Sep | Wed 7 Oct | |
| Cut dance floor supporting posts. | Sun 4 Oct | Tue 6 Oct | |
| Install dance floor supporting posts. | Sun 4 Oct | Wed 7 Oct | |
| Cut and install dance floor girders. | Mon 5 Oct | Fri 9 Oct | |
| Cut and install dance floor joists. | Tue 6 Oct | Sun 11 Oct | |
| Assemble South 'A' wall. | Wed 7 Oct | Fri 16 Oct | |
| Assemble central 'B' wall. | Thu 8 Oct | Mon 19 Oct | |
| Install north floor timbers. | Thu 22 Oct | Thu 22 Oct | |
| Assemble north 'F' wall. | Fri 23 Oct | Mon 26 Oct | |
| Assemble entrance 'G' wall. | Fri 23 Oct | Mon 26 Oct | |
| Raise entrance 'G' wall. | Sat 24 Oct | Mon 26 Oct | |
| Raise north 'F' wall. | Wed 28 Oct | Wed 28 Oct | |
| Raise bent 2 & 3 plates and central plate in north 'F' wall. | Wed 28 Oct | Thu 29 Oct | |
| Raise central 'B' wall. | Wed 28 Oct | Wed 28 Oct | |
| Raise South 'A' wall. | Wed 28 Oct | Wed 28 Oct | |
| Fly in upper floor girders and joists. | Wed 28 Oct | Wed 28 Oct | |
| Roof truss delivery. | Fri 30 Oct | Sat 31 Oct | |
| Install roof sheathing. | Thu 12 Nov | Thu 12 Nov | |
| Varnish and install Fascia and Rake. | Sat 21 Nov | Tue 1 Dec | |
| Install metal roof. | Mon 23 Nov | Fri 4 Dec | |
| Rip wall studs to 7.5in. width | Mon 7 Dec | Mon 7 Dec | |
| Plane dance floor spring boards. | Tue 8 Dec | Tue 8 Dec | |
| Plane dance floor sleeper boards. | Thu 10 Dec | Wed 9 Dec | |
| Install dance floor spring boards. | Mon 14 Dec | Fri 25 Dec | |
| Install dance floor sleeper boards. | Thu 17 Dec | Thu 31 Dec | |
| Plane diagonal sheathing. | Mon 18 Jan | Thu 18 Feb | |
| Rip diagonal sheathing. | Thu 21 Jan | Thu 25 Feb | |
| Frame mid floor walls, except north bath. | Tue 15 Jun | Mon 15 Mar | Six of seven bays framed. |
| Frame lower floor walls. | Fri 15 Jan | Sun 21 Mar | |
| Edge upper floor diagonal sheathing. | Sat 10 Apr | Fri 23 Apr | |
| Install upper floor diagonal sheathing. | Sat 17 Apr | Thu 6 May | |
| Frame upper floor walls. | Wed 9 Jun | Wed 30 Jun | |
| Frame north wall of bathroom. | Tue 15 Jun | Mon 30 Aug | |
| Sheath west wall. | Tue 27 Jul | Mon 13 Sep | |
| Sheath north walls with diagonal boards. | Tue 22 Jun | Thu 7 Oct | |
| Sheath entrance walls. | Sat 26 Jun | Thu 16 Dec | |
| Sheath south wall - first layer. | Thu 15 Jul | About half done. | |
| Sheath east wall. | Sat 7 Aug | ||
| Sheath south wall - second layer. | Thu 19 Aug |