The Roof Insulation

What a beautiful Saturday we had! 75 and sunny - you just couldn't ask for a more beautiful day.

The insulation is finished on the West roof in this picture. We put the Typar up on the whole roof, and then applied the foam insulation and lathing strips on top of that. The Typar makes a slippery, unstable surface that can not be walked on safely. In the large version of this picture (which you can see by clicking on the pic, by the way), you can see a yellow rope entering the view about halfway up the right of the picture and resting on a piece of sheathing on the peak of the roof. We tied the rope to a tree, then hung a ladder on the roof to provide a scaffolding of sorts so we could work up there. I say 'we' a lot, but in this case, Andy did all the work on the roof. Chris didn't like the slippery, nothing to hold on to, balance with a drill and a hammer and 7" nails kind of work that high up. Plus, he claims he was able to find a firm rule that says the big brother has to do all the hard stuff. He was unable to provide a reference for that rule...
Benson and Chris carried insulation over to the East side of the house. These sheets are 2" thick and 4' x 8'. They aren't heavy, but they are pretty awkward.

The East roof is complete here, too. The sheets overlap on the peak; the West wall went up first, so Andy trimmed that edge to be flush with the line of the East roof. The East roof insulation overlapped the West foam, and was trimmed to be flush with the outside of the foam there. The sheets overlap the South wall a bit, so we'll trim that later. Perhaps when we are working on the wall foam, or perhaps when we're back up on the roof to work on the actual roofing surface.

The 7" gutter spikes that hold the lathing strips and 4" of foam to the walls need to have a predrilled 3/16" hole. This prevents the lathing from splitting from the large nail. This is our cordless drill in action - the batteries are rechargeable with peanut butter and jelly, though they run better on a nice salmon steak. The roof and walls will all be predrilled this way.

The final shot of the day. Most of the foam is up on the West wall now, though we have a few fiddly bits around the windows and the foot or so that needs to meet up against the roof.
p.s. Somebody asked what a "Florian" was this week. I mentioned it in a previous post. I couldn't find a good close-up of it from this week's work, but if you go back in the blog to the 2/18/08 post called "The East and West Walls", there is a picture of three boys and Mindy crowded around a sheathing board. Nathan is using the Florian in that picture. It is a 12" pruning saw that has been used in every step of the house process. We have cut all of our siding with it, all of the foam, the sheathing, etc...

The Stairs

Beautiful week! Several sunny days, and even a few with warm temperatures. Andy started on the house wrap, and has the roof and a lot of the sides covered. We'll get everything nice and tight and secure when we wrap the house in foam.
Laying out the 2x12s to make stringers - you can see the marks on the boards in the big version of the photo. We cut them laying just like this, using the circular saw for most of it and finishing up the unreachable bits with the Florian. You can also see the bathroom framed in on the North end of the dining room. That will be a full bath attached to Chris and Karen's bedroom.

Laying on the treads. We'll use pieces of the tongue and groove 2x6 flooring to make the stair treads. We'll trim the tongue off, and they'll make a nice, solid tread. Kick boards will be 1x8 sheathing left over from the walls if we have to... if it's ok with the almighty code, then we'd all prefer to leave the treads open.

The four of us. It feels great to have stairs now, and it's hard to imagine what we did without them! This is the view from the window in Chris and Karen's bedroom, looking South into the rest of the house.

Karen and Mindy are laying out the kitchen - using sawhorses, 2x4s, and anything else not nailed down. They're excited about the layout, which is great news for Andy and Chris. You know what they say... happy wife, happy life. You can also see the mudroom framed in on the North end of the kitchen. We'll have a half bath there, some lockers for coats and boots and things, and other mudroomy stuff. The doorway into the kitchen is a full 48", and will eventually be arched. The angles are such that we will be able to walk into the house with a wheelbarrow full of wood. This was important to Chris, probably because he'd be too lazy to take more than one trip out to the wood pile.

The Peaks and the Roof

This is the ceiling above the kitchen. Andy and Mindy did a lot of work on the East roof above the living room, and Andy is up there now, plugging along. It seems like there is an acre of roof on this house.
The living room is a very nice area, and having the roof/ceiling in place really makes the room look great. It has always amazed us how closing in a space can make it feel larger. Every step of the process has made our house feel larger.
Chris takes a turn up on the roof. We finished the roof up to the loft joists on this day, and what a beautiful clear day it was. All of us went home with a bit of sun on our faces.Karen, Mindy and the boys were out today, too. They measured, cut, and moved a whole lot of lumber with us, and while Chris and Andy were up on the roof, they cleaned up the house. I don't know why Ethan looks so downcast, because Mindy is one of the most easy people to get along with. She does look pretty authoritative in this pose, though...

Andy is hammering in the final nails on the first peak we built. We chose to build them in the loft area, and then pass them up. It was a good system, and by the time we finished the last peak, it was a piece of cake. We built and stacked them on top of each other. Andy would lift the peak over his head from the loft area while Chris would stand on a 2x12 on the loft joists. He would pick it up from Andy, lift it up over the collar ties, then drop it in place. They are heavy, and Andy would guide the ends over the collar tie as Chris lowered it. Nice and smooth.This is the basement on the North wall, and will be the egress window for the boys' bedroom. Andy framed this in and sheathed it up. It looks real neat from the inside.
We figured it was about time we frame in the South windows, so that's finally done, too. With Andy in between projects at work, he really went to town at the house site! You can see the first three peaks up on the North end of the house.
Working on the last few boards on the West roof. No pun intended, mom. No, really... stop laughing. It's not punny.

Andy and Chris are squatting happily on the roof, and Matt is there, too, standing in between the peaks.
There is so much beautiful light that comes in the house through the South wall. It's really amazing, and we are absolutely thrilled with the design of the house. It's hard to capture the feel of the house with a camera. You really have to stand here and look around to take it all in. It's almost cathedral like.
The South view on Sunday afternoon. I ran up to take a few final pictures because yes, once again I ran out of batteries on Saturday evening. But the sunlight on Sunday was beautiful, so it's all good. It's a very squat, sunken look, and it just settles into the land.

The back side of the house, with the roof done up to the peaks. It's nice to know we won't get so much rain or snow into the house now.

The Easter Weekend

Andy started with the roof this weekend, but with everybody out of town for Easter, we have no pictures!

We'll get some up next weekend, and yes, we promise to make it up to you. Next week should show some big differences.

The North and South Siding

Well, here's another weekend, and what do you know... more rain! :) Just a bit on Friday evening, then some snow overnight just to make the driveway a little more fun on the way in.

It was good to get back to work on the house, and we're pleased with our headway with the siding. The window placements on the North and South walls are visible now. The edges of the siding that extend beyond the rafters will be trimmed later, just before we start on the interior roof, which is the same tongue and groove material that comprise the sides.
Ahhh.... what a lovely space. This is the living room, looking South. Karen thinks maybe we should paint the ceilings blue. The sawhorses are our poor man's scaffolding. They were made from scraps, and have been tremendously useful.

A close-up of the joinery in the dining room window area. We had to fit the window framework around the knee brace, and it made for some stimulating calculations and assembly.

The stream has been very loud lately with all the snow melt-off and rain. This is the view from Chris and Karen's bedroom window.

The North wall. The loft windows are framed in now, though the rest of the wall looks pretty bare still. We have ideas for what to do there, but aren't quite decided yet. The house needs a haircut in a few spots!

The 3 inches of rain at 35 degrees

Thanks to several big tarps, 95% of Saturday's rain ended up outside of the house.

Saturday was pretty cold, wet, and miserable. We checked the tarps in the morning, but didn't stay to do any work on the house.

Thanks to daylight savings, we look forward to an extra hour of sunlight each day. We hope to be able to get out there some nights during the week.

Come on, spring!

The First Part of the South Wall

Mindy made pancakes for dinner last night, and I confess... I chose pancakes and applesauce over updating the blog. I'm weak.

I remembered to snap a few pictures while people were working on Saturday afternoon, though. Mindy and the boys were out for awhile, Karen was out for awhile, and Andy and Chris were out for most of the day. Andy is working on the South wall here. This will be the South end of the kitchen.

Karen is doing the same thing, but on the East end of the South wall. She's laughing about something - probably because I'm too close with the camera and she keeps knocking the nail crooked. :)

We just can't catch a break with the weather... we spent a few hours shoveling around the house on Saturday morning, and it snowed off and on for most of the day. By the time we left at 6, it was really coming down. You can see the window placement well here - the kitchen will be on the left, the dining room that we haven't framed in yet is in the middle, and the living room end that Karen worked on is on the far right. When more of the snow has melted, we'll frame in the windows for the basement, and siding will go on there, too.

And for any of you curious about why we don't bother to plow our driveway, here's why: