The Loft Bents

As much as we love the floor, we are very glad to be past that step. We put up one bent on Friday night, and started Saturday with a good handle on how to put the remaining bents together.
Eli thought that his Uncle Chris needed some help hitting the nail. In the background are quite a few visitors. Chris volunteers with a Boy Scout Troop from our Church, and they camped out at the land on Friday night. Several of them stayed to help with the work on Saturday, and had a good time nailing the bents together and lifting them into place with us. This picture also serves as a good display of the internal structure of the loft bents.

Lifting a heavy bent into place.

By dusk on Saturday, we had eight of the ten bents assembled and in place. It would have gone faster if we hadn't paused after each bent to say "wow... that looks great!"

Same time, different angle. We cleaned up the deck a bit, moved the sawhorses into the future dining room to give us space to put up the final bents on Monday, and threw tarps over everything we could. Except for the 2x4 coming down at an angle from the Northern and nearest bent, nothing else is attached by nails. The tenons of the center 2x6 in the posts settle right into the floor, and the two outside 2x6s in the posts settle onto the shoulder of the deck. Everything is tight and solid, even without external support. We braced it all to keep it straight until we return on Monday, but we were quite impressed with how strong everything feels.