I was unaware that the framing crew would work on Labor Day, but they did. So no pictures to show for this day.
Tuesday, September 2
We're now into the first week of September, and it's all about ridge beams and rafters today.
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| Ridge beam over Garage |
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| Ridge beam over Pantry Porch |
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| Ridge beam over Guest Bedroom #1 |
It's just amazing to me to see the amount of time and detail that they give to every component. Like the precise adjustments needed for the outside rafters over the guest bedroom window.
If you look at the picture on the left you will see that the board comes across vertical stud. Looking at the picture on the right, he is marking the rafter. He is going to cut the rafter perfectly, to fit the condition.
You can see it better, after the cut has been made. Then it is secured and he moves to the front of the room to repeat the procedure to make another perfect fit. This roof pitch is 10:12.
Now that this is done, he moves up to the main house roof ridge to help several men all working on the largest portion of roofing for our home. It really is very impressive to watch them build the scaffolding and work on surfaces that are no larger than 3 1/2" across.
While they are busy working and trying to get everything done that only they know what needs to be accomplished by day's end, I do another walk around the property. The back wall of the screen porch has been bugging me, but I can't put my finger on it. It's not until one of the crew cuts and hammers in the sill plate for one of the two screen windows that still need to be framed out, that it becomes apparent. As he hammers the cut board into place, I call out for the head framer. It is now obvious to me. The sill is being hammered in too low, and both of the windows need to be moved up. Oh dear, how did I miss that? It's shown on the plan. But everyone missed it. Let's blame it on the heat of the summer. It has been hot. Really hot!
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| These windows both had to be moved up. |
The plan shows that the sill height for these 2 windows is 51", but they were going in at 23". Part of the reason is that we were focused on how the headers lined up at the top when they were initially framed out 2 weeks ago! When there is so much involved in building a new home it is easy to miss something and if it's not caught right way, well then, most everyone is focused on the next part of the job. This was a minor fix. The sheathing, and Tyvek, were not installed yet. It really sets everyone back when something is found so much later down the road.
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| Rafters going up over the Main house. Storm blowing in. |
While the head framer is making the corrections, the rest of his team is throwing up and banging out rafters all over the place!
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| Rafters up on the Pantry Porch |
The neighbors have said that storms pop up over the lake pretty quickly, so as soon as you see a dark cloud, head for land. These men stayed up there through one lighting strike and a thunder bolt. They were hoping it would pass through.
The rain started coming down just too hard for them to continue, and it was nearly 5 PM, normal quitting time. They didn't seem to mind packing up in the rain. The problem was getting the cars, and trucks off the property. The fill dirt that we needed has created a soupy clay mixture when wet. It's best to stay off of it unless it's dry. It will be nice when we get the final grade, and grass, but that is so far far away...........
Wednesday, September 3
It's dormer day!
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| 1st dormer to appear at 2:45 PM |
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| By 4:30 PM all three are appearing. |
Look at the picture on the left. To the right of that dormer is my art room on the 2nd floor. Notice that there is no dormer there - yet.
At 4:30 I took the picture on the right. Can't see the art room from this position right? Stay tuned....
I just love the picture to the left. The roof overhangs are 12". You can see on the right the man placing each one of the horizontal pieces into the pre-notched rafters. Just awesome!
At 3:36 PM I get asked the first question of the day. I told you to bring something to do. The head framer has a question about the sill height for the window dormer over the garage. The plan shows a sill height of 32". He thinks that is too low. He recommends 44". I think that is too high. So we compromise on 36-38". He still is not comfortable with it, but builds it that way. Remember they build the walls on the floor. The stairs aren't built yet, so I can't go up to the second floor to see what the issues are.
They are already 1 hour into building the wall. I'm standing by to see what it will look like when the wall is raised.
Here we go, lifting....
lifting.....
Standing....Oh no! No wonder he thought the window sill was too low. The wall has been built too tall! They carefully lay down the wall. I quickly look up on my smart phone a color photo of what I am looking for from Houzz.com. I show him the image. He understands and then disappears into the center of the second floor. I quickly try to find him to warn him that the art room has the same condition. I find him up in the art room. My heart stops. Oh dear, the art room dormer is finished with roof rafters and all! I did not see this earlier. It's 5 PM. The end of the work day, and later I realize the end of the work week on this property. This is NOT a minor fix.
Monday, September 8
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| Taking down the Art Room Dormer |
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| Working on the Main House Dormers |
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| Break Time- Warm homemade Sticky Buns for the framing crew |
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| Garage Dormer redone and finished |
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| 12:12 roof pitch over Main House dormers |
Stairs
One of the issues last week was that I was not suppose to climb the ladder, and I did when the dormers were not going up as drawn on the plans. The builder trusted me to follow his direction, and I let him down. So today the stairs are being built in the main house.
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| Two men focused on building the stairs. One at the top. |
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| One man on the bottom. |
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| One did the measuring and installing. |
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| While the other did all the cutting. |
Building the stairs took all day. My builder said this was one of the last things to be completed. I suspect this was changed up so I would not be climbing any more ladders during the house build. The stairs are awesome. They have a 7" rise and a 11" tread. The landing is large and when they turn the corner the stairs really widen. We want to make sure that moving furniture upstairs will go up smoothly. I will wire for 3 wall sconces in the stairwell, but not install the fixtures until AFTER the movers have placed all the furniture upstairs.
It has taken just about the entire day for 2-3 men to redo the art room dormer. This has obviously put them behind on what they had hoped to get accomplished today. I saw no one complaining everyone worked hard all day and then when you think the day is over they went into "hyper gear". They put up scaffolding,
bracing and dug through lumber with the fastest speed. All so they could attack the eaves, adding Tyvek, add additional lumber work so that the decking could get started tomorrow. They completed all the roof perimeters. Men on the ground cutting lumber to lengths called out from above, and thrown up piece by piece to be caught by the crew on the scaffold. It is truly an art to watch them work like this. They keep hydrated and eat snacks throughout the day to keep their energy level up. It shows. I am always amazed of just how hard they work. So efficient! I'm just sitting back waiting on an occasional question. Oh, and I pick up after them. Sort of use to picking up after my three sons, when they were small. Can't say that anymore now that they are all grown up. So it does make me feel good to have something to do. I would just go crazy hanging out at my apartment while this was going on. The men worked past their usual 5 PM stop time to get this done, more like 6:45 PM.
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| 7:16 PM The roof is ready for decking . |
Tuesday- Thursday morning, Sept 9-11
Let the decking begin and finish. Three young, agile men were in charge of putting the decking material and felt on.
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| September 10 |
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| September 11 |
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| September 11 |
Just a little bit more to do. They'll be back tomorrow to finish the screen porch, back of the main house, and back of garage. At least all the decking is up. Now just waiting on felt to be applied.
Here's another storm coming in. This one was called in to me by my husband. He gave me an hour warning. The winds were so strong on this one that it was hard to take a clear picture.
This picture is cool because it shows you the blue sunny day I was enjoying until these dark storm clouds came rolling in.
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| Taken from across the inlet. The strong winds made it hard to focus the camera. Think of it as a watercolor. |
The lumber yard makes another delivery.
IPE, Ironwood from Brazil. A very hard wood. Excellent for application for our front porch.
Lots and lots of siding. As well as all the exterior doors. The builder doesn't like to have them sit for more than a day. But the framers have a heavy workload. So we are hoping they will be back on Monday. I will be there on Monday to accept delivery of the Marvin Integrity Windows I ordered out of Dallas. So excited!!!
Saturday, September 13
We thought the framers would be here today. I didn't realize they worked on Saturday, but not here this Saturday. They are just trying to keep up with some other projects they are working on. We worked on installing our temporary mailbox. The postmaster said they would deliver even though we haven't moved in yet. That is good news, since some portion of our mail is still being mailed to North Dallas. So if we can do this now, we think it will make the transition better next year when we move in.
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| Temporary |
We placed it far enough away from all the action going in and out of the driveway. The permanent one will be built at the driveway entrance, and one of the very last things to do, I'm sure. Now let's see if the deer eat the "color" accent for an appetizer.
So hopefully the next blog will be all about windows, and siding and doors..oh my! Windows and siding and doors .. oh my!
Have a great week everyone.
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