The Great Construction Saga -- Part 9

Next on the agenda is everything else. The screen and front porches get framed and work begins on the interior. It looks like this:

The floor of the screen porch is almost finished.

The view up the hill toward the garage from the screen porch.

Matt and Eric get the last of the porch floor installed.

Then the front porch/mud room is begun.

Upstairs, someone is making floor.

The view from below as the floor goes in.

WW preparing flooring for Eric upstairs.

Meanwhile, the front porch is developing apace.

Lots of room on the right for hanging coats.

A definite upgrade from the accommodations 

in the Little House.

It's a floor!

Uh oh. We don't seem to have enough floor.

Still, handing for getting small children downstairs quickly.

The right side will be the guest bedroom.

Left side will be a study/TV room.

Study/TV room.

The Great Construction Saga -- Part 8

I apologise for the hiatus in postings. On November 7, the smallest member of the crew went missing and hasn't been seen since. I can only hope he is resting comfortably with someone who can appreciate his many talents. All other scenarios are unacceptable. I have been overcome with grief and not felt much like perpetrating cheery construction banter. But here we go again. I must get caught up.

As advertised, Zack and the big digger arrived to terraform our environs. Eric, a talented landscaper who has worked with Zack before, was away on a hunting trip to Anticosti Island, so it was Matt who played chicken with the big scoop. Much earth was moved. Many large stones were shifted. It looked like this:

Creating a sloped pathway to the front door.

The view from the other side 

where Matt had begun shingling under the eaves.

Matt holding one of the cement forms that will eventually 

support the screen porch. Zack operating with much delicacy.

A rustic stairway built from our bumper crop of big stones.

The first flight leads to barbecue and bread oven level.

The second leads to the parking area.

Matt corrected me. It's not a chair.

It's a beer table.

Zack arranged more big stones down the incline to make a pool.

Our drainage will run into it so we'll hear running water

from the comfort of our screen porch.

Landscaping as seen from the side dining room window.

With the landscaping at last completed, Matt returned to his scaffold and his shingles. He gave me a brief course in shingling and we discussed beautiful examples of the art we have seen in the Maritimes. Then I went off and Matt succumbed to inspiration. It looked like this:

Matt puts his imprint on our house with his waves.

He said we shouldn't have left him alone...

Eric returned from his hunting trip, recovered from a cold,

and prepared a cement pad to support our propane tank,

up by the garage. Cooking stove and heating (pseudo wood)stove

will run on propane.

The shingling nears completion.

Yes, it is that gorgeous.

The Great Construction Saga -- Part 7

While Matt and Eric continued to work on siding, WW attacked a very particular problem--the rock veneer for those bits of foundation that appear above ground level. After considerable shopping and pondering, ably assisted by yr correspondent, he settled on a nice pale pattern of beiges, creams and browns. Then he hauled out the tile cutter and went to work. It looked like this:

WW applying the foundation veneer.

And then -- O Frabjous Day! -- the windows and doors arrived. Well, in truth, not all the windows. The store had perpetrated some sort of error on our order and we'd have to wait another week for the missing windows to materialize. Ah well, such is house construction. Eric and Matt got to work at once installing what we had received. Matt was seriously annoyed when we'd had to put Tyvek over the front windows...he (and everyone else) is in love with the view. The first window he put in was the living room one. This is what installation of windows and doors looked like:

Living room window and sliding door to the deck have been installed. View restored!

Matt adjusting the door which will lead to the screen porch when there is a screen porch.

While all this industry was occurring, autumn arrived.

The colours are our forest's way of waving goodbye as it settles in for a long winter's sleep.

Matt climbed the scaffolding to start work on the cedar shingles that would be a decorative detail on the upper reaches of the house. He enjoys shingling and gave me a brief lecture on Shingling 101. It was very interesting and informative. Then he talked about wonderful intricate shingling he'd seen down east. I told him about some shingling I'd seen in PEI. Then I left him to it.

The first of Matt's shingling can be seen at the peak.

The remaining windows arrived and were installed. WW finished the foundation veneer. 

Benson inspects WW's sterling veneer work.

It was time for the landscaping to happen. We waited for Zack and the shovel to arrive. Finally, the great day came. The next installment will tell you all about that.

The Great Construction Saga -- Part 6

The week following completion of the frame was filled with wall creation. I was not on hand to witness this as I was frolicking in Prince Edward Island with our friends Gay and Arnold. WW was too busy construction to come along, alas, but I had a great time and lots of lobster, blueberries, oysters, clams and mussels. Gay is a great hunter-gatherer.

When I returned after a lovely week away, progress had been made. Walls were appearing and the roof was going on at a great clip. My first view after returning was this:

Looking a lot like a house, wearing its moisture barrier

and developing what can only be called walls,

the house has begun to be a house.

As I explained in an earlier post, the walls and ceiling/roof are being made of SIPs or structural insulated panels. WW had laboured mightly sanding and staining the inside (plywood) surfaces of these. The ones stained white came our very nicely, but the blue we had chosen proved, in the clear light of day, to be less successful. We call it Regrettable Blue. Wallpaper or paint may be in our future. It looked like this:

Our bedroom taking shape. Alas for the
Regrettable Blue on the walls. 

The box that will be our home is almost entirely closed in.
That opening at the bottom is the basement door.

Access to the deck, bearing all manner of tools and equipment
is via this hole in the wall.

Putting up one of the roof SIPs.

Just as the roof was reaching completion, WW was called away to an important fishing long weekend. Nothing daunted, Eric and Matt soldiered on. I went down to see what progress at shortly after 4 p.m., carrying a bottle of prosecco (we had failed to lay in champagne) and found the lads having a beer. And with justice! The roof was done!

As the wine I had was bubbly but Italian, we toasted the house and made offerings to Lares and Pinates, pouring generous libations over the hearth. Eric and Matt gamely joined in, though I suspect prosecco and beer is not a good match. Still, we hope the household gods will be on our side and bring prosperity and comfort to our little house.

Last few bits to finish the roof. Dormers have taken shape.
Eventually, the whole thing becomes a lovely snug closed-in box. Then...

...they cut holes in it.

The view as one walks down the hill is changing by the minute.

Cedar siding is appearing.

 All is ready for windows and doors.

The windows have temporary covers to keep the weather out.

Our living room is a workshop. The smell of pine is intoxicating.

The Great Construction Saga -- Part 5

The crane arrived. It took quite a while for the crane operator to install himself and his monster machine on the platform Zack had built for just this occasion. When the job was finally done, it looked like this:

Crane installed, looking slightly as though
it is launching itself into the air.

Once the crane operator was satisfied with his crane's position and stability, he extended the arm to its full length and prepared to lift the first bent--the one that would stand farthest from the crane. Among other things, this bent was also the heaviest, weighing in at some 2,700 lbs. The crane operator was most insistent that it not drop off the end of the foundation, since that would cause a mighty jerk. His crane is rated at 2,900 lbs, and said jerk could prove destablizing, at the very least. An outcome devoutly to be not wished.

The bent itself was made up of several posts, beams and braces, joined and held by wooden pegs, but the joints were not strong enough for the tensions and pressures raising the bent would entail, so the centre was braced with boards clamped over the most susceptible joints. It looked like this:

First bent, braced across its middle to prevent wobbles and snaps,

rises to its place on the foundation.

Eric puts temporary bracing around the base of one of the posts.

While the crane maintains tension, Eric and Matt work to brace

the first bent so it can stand free while the plates are put in place

and the second bent is raised.

When the first bent is securely braced, the reinforcing

boards and clamps are removed.

The first plate (connections between bents) is raised 

and given temporary support.

Eric watches the base of the centre post on the second bent

as the bent is rasied into position.

Attaching one of the plates between bents 2 and 3.

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters!

Uh oh. See where Tabs A, B and C are?

See where Slots X, Y and Z are?

Not precisely aligned, then, are they?

This will require some pushing, shoving and

general chivvying.

Pushing, shoving, and chivvying under way.

A well-behaved roof beam, with all tabs in assigned slots.

The crane was on site for two or three days, raising all the bits and pieces...joists and beams and rafters and what not. At a certain point, the whole mess began to look like a house:

Proto-roof going up.

My goodness! This could be a house one day!

When the last of the timber had been placed in the frame, an ancient timber framers tradition was performed. A sapling of the tree that provided the bulk of the wood -- in our case, pine -- was affixed at the peak. Then it was most definitely beer o'clock.

Frame complete, with a pine sapling as testament.