The Trusses

Saturday

We had everything in place to put the trusses up on Saturday. We had nearly a dozen people ready to come up and help, the scaffolding was in place and the boom truck was reserved from the lumber yard. But, plans began to change when the driver of the boom truck refused to drive his truck down our "steep" slope down to the house. So, we began making plans for manually lifting the trusses into place while the flatbed truck dropped our trusses onto the hard wet ground.

To make matters a little more stressful, we noticed that there was a little dmanage to one of the gable end trusses. All the while the wind howled in sharp gusts, tossing tarps and bending the trees. All signs told us to wait to put the trusses up. So, all hands were called and kept on hold for a couple of hours. While we waited for the weather to turn, we put in fireblocking and cut bird blocking with help from Jane's dad, Read. We also put in the plywood for the risers in the stairs, totally closing them in. A couple of hours later, the weather still wasn't cooperating. So, Saturday's plans were put off until Sunday.

Sunday

Sunday morning began slowly as the wind continued howling. But, in the distance there were spots of clear skies. While Eli cut notches in the first gable end truss for the lookouts, Jane went to town and got some last minute supplies and shortly after she got home, the crew was there and right to work. Scaffolding and planking wereset up to provide the crew with an elevated place to roll the trusses into place. We had a slightly different rolling experience to most because we had specially ordered trusses with a really large "energy heel". This allows us more space to insulate. So, we cut notches into the plywood before the trusses were put into place, thus giving us a castle look until the truss installation.

Then, when the trusses came up, they were set right into the notches, spaced and then fastened. After the second truss, the skies miraculously cleared and what had been forecasted as a rainy and windy day turned into a gorgeous sunny one.

Once everyone got going, this was a pretty rapid process. Including the time taken to make and install 4 lookouts on the gable ends, it took 2 and 1/2 hours to get all the trusses up!! The last gable end had to have some repairs done to it and had the lookout notched cut out before it was lifted.

The crew was fed a hearty meal and thanked profusely.

Then, Jane and Eli continued bracing and securing the trusses and marveled at the progress.

Stairway to Heaven

Who knows what our dog Daisy thought was on the 2nd floor but she was very anxious to go see it. When Jane and Eli got home from work on Thursday afternoon, Eli had already temporarily installed the 1st set of stringers. Daisy immediatly ran up to the landing, looked up to the second floor and seemed to consider jumping the remaining distance to get up there.

Building Stairs

In order to grant easier access to the 2nd floor for our roof raising, we've been building a set of stairs that we can later take out for insulating and sheetrocking. Our stairs are an "L-shaped" set so our first step was to build the landing.

How To Cut Out Windows (prior to router work)

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All Jacked Up

Worked on the house til 10:30 tonight (Monday evening). We put in all the headers and jack (timmer) studs for the windows upstairs.

Hot Stuff

We got a new and bigger BBQ grill! Now, when we have wonderful people up helping us with our house, we have enough room on the grill to cook up a full meal for them.

And, Leon said we could use this little chest freezer! Its the perfect size for us! To think, in this same spot, Jane had a cooler which, for 4 years, served as her only means of cold food storage. Wow! This freezer has already got some halibut and salmon in it. Now we're all ready to get some moose and bear! Yum!

All the top plates are on now. Man, what a scorcher it was yesterday; at least up on our 2 floor anyway. There was quite seriously, about a 10-15 degree difference between our first and second floors. The first floor has all the windows cut out and is nice and shady. The second floor has a full wind break with one hole in the wall where the sliding glass door will be. Watching the pollen in the air, one could watch the wind blow slightly into the house and then right back out, without making a dent in the temps at all.

Once the top plates were up, we had to bring the tops of the walls in to 16 feet so that our trusses will fit snuggly. We used a large ratchet strap attatched to small 2x6 blocks which were screwed to studs on both sides othe house. It only took a couple of cranks on the ratchet to bring the wall in the 1/2 inch we needed. Then it was time to secure our spacing board which is really 3 boards sistered together. To minimize any sagging, we put a brace in the middle. We made sure not to put this spacer on top of any of our studs because that's where the trusses will go. We will cut notches in the plywood for the trusses to slip right into. So, cutting the notches is one of our upcoming projects. But, before that, we're going to put in all our headers and jack studs for the upstairs windows.

Our trusses by the way, are at Spenard Builders Supply. We haven't yet set a date to have them delivered because we are just taking our time and keeping things fun. We are very lucky to not have a pre-set schedule from the bank or anyone else. We are very proud of where we've gotten considering that we're both working and we're doing this on our "free time".

We are also very grateful to know that we already have a cozy and warm place to live and that we aren't in a rush to get our house done and moved into by the winter. Our goal is to have it dried in by the end of the summer. And I'd say that we're right on track for that. :)

During the winter, we'll have a great project to work on, doing the interior work.

"Look Ma! A Wall-A-Day!"

Well, its officially a 2 story box without a lid!

Shine a little light on the topic

The video that I took the other night was a bit dark since it was so late. So, here's a redo of that video where you can actually SEE things!

We worked on the house until 12:15 this morning. You know it must be late when its summer in Alaska and its actually getting dark! We did, however get our last piece of the 3rd wall up (with some tweaking) and were rewarded with a beautiful red moon caused by the smoke from the fires up north.

Earlier in the day, Pat came up and helped out again. Here, he and Eli stand a small portion of one of our 16' walls.

One More Wall

Our trusses are in at the hardware store. So, we are excitedly putting up walls. This house is getting mighty tall. Where Eli is standing and Zak is reaching towards will actually be cut out more to be a 5 feet wide sliding glass door which will eventually lead onto a deck.