The Construction Tour

Here is a video tour of the house in progress. It gives much more of the feel of the house than just straight pictures do.

Thirty-Six and One Half Degrees

Saturday was slightly warm and rainy - the ice in the driveway cleared off and the snow was melting , but it was pouring most of the day. I was nice and dry, working inside, except for when I had to turn the generator on and off.


I assembled the walls of the closet using the studs I had cut last week. Since the studs go right up to the rafters and there is no top plate, I tied them together with some strapping across the face so that the wall rose all together when I picked it up. Once I secured the notched stud next to the post, the wall held in place and I was able to nail the studs into the rafters.


Sunday I did some cleanup and put some studs in over the hallway bathroom door. We want to close in the area over the bathroom for tidiness and perhaps build some more storage in up there.


Next week I need to do the headers for the doors, and then start on stairs to the basement. The 2x12s that I retreived two weeks ago had finally had all the ice melted off of them. The electrical and plumbing work are looming on the horizon before we can close in walls, and with Wendy coming back at the beginning of April, Pop back from his travels and the weather (hopefully) starting to turn to spring soon, we will be going back to foam and housewrap, followed shortly by windows and doors.

The Blizzard of House

Saturday was supposed to be a rough day, weather-wise, due to the snow storms that were coming through. We decided to wait until Sunday to move ourslves all around. The storms were almost nothing where we live, so we were kicking ourselves all day (in vain at that).

When I got to the house on Sunday, we had maybe 7 inches of snow, and it had been plowed, though it is getting pretty tough - if the pile of snow gets any bigger in the driveway, I won't be able to get to the house without chopping a hole in the snow bank. It took me over an hour just to dig my way into the container and the house.

I pulled out the generator and the saw and measured and cut the bottom plate and studs for the upstairs closet wall. They all had to be plumbed and then marked and then cut, since the roof is a 9-in-12 pitch, which is an odd angle. The stud next to the post at the loft also had to be notched out to fit around the collar tie. By time I finished that up and got everything oput back away, it was time to call it a day.