Right on schedule, we finished up the last bit of sheathing that we can do before the roof trusses are set in place. With just a bit more internal bracing, we’ll be ready for the hired crew to put the trusses in place starting on Wednesday. We had hoped to have the trusses ready by Monday, but the truss company has been running behind due to high demand lately. The earliest they can have our trusses ready will be Tuesday afternoon.
Using cargo straps and the bumper of the dually, Oz was able to get all the walls pulled into plumb before placing sheathing on the framework. We are very happy with the nice, straight walls on the house. It is really taking shape. Here are a few photos of the progress:
Front viewView from the north, looking at the back porch area...Back porchView looking out family room windows to the west.
We have planned to have large exposed beams supporting the back porch area, near the front entry and inside the house foyer. With the intense sun in SE New Mexico, it is important to protect the wood. Thus… choosing a stain color for the wood.
Luckily, we were able to get stain samples from Scott McCain of Mountain Home Building Products. After a phone conversation with him, he sent us several samples of their products that will offer good UV protection to the wood. After receiving them, mixing well (apparently the pigment tends to settle in the bottoms of the jars) and brushing on some of the type of wood we have for the beams, pillars and corbels, you can see the results after the samples dried:
UV Guard Clear, UV Guard II SantaFe Sun, UV Guard II ClearUV Guard Light Brown, AmberUVGuardII Teakwood, UV Guard HoneyBrown, UVGuard FawnUVGuard Ii Rustic Timber, UVGuard II Cedartone
Although the stain from the Honey Brown ran into the Fawn a little bit, we were still able to see the clear distinction between the colors. We are leaning toward the Fawn color… Really, though, they are all really attractive colors, so we’d probably be happy with any of them.
Scott encouraged us to choose a stain with some pigment to better protect the wood. Since the beams will be largely under the porch and will have some protection, we could use the clear or the very light Santa Fe Sun, but we are thinking more color would be better in the long run.
What do you think?
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to say we are a bit partial towards working with Scott and Mountain Home Building Products, since he is family, but I would encourage anyone to give their products a try. Check out their site using the link in our blogroll.
Work has continued… the main work happening now is the house sheathing. After drilling bolts to secure various walls in the house to the foundation, leveling the walls and sheathing started. As you can see from the photos, from the first sheet of OSB on the corner of the garage, the sheathing has progressed around the back side of the house to the laundry room and onto the wall of the music room on the front side.
Attaching the first sheet of OSB sheathingGarage sheathedSheathing on Music Room
On the garage, the second floor framing will be done when the rafters are stick-built for the roof above the bonus room. In order to allow a sturdy tie-in, the top bit of sheathing on the end wall was left to complete after the framing is complete.
As the walls are leveled, interior bracing is added to keep the framing from shifting when the upstairs framing above the garage and roof trusses are added to the rest of the house.
The upstairs framing and placing trusses is scheduled to start next Monday. That portion is being subcontracted, so it should happen much faster than our two-person pace typically produces.
Yesterday we finished up the flooring for the bonus room above the garage. Starting at the stairs, we gradually got the entire surface above the floor joists covered with tongue-in-groove flooring OSB. After cutting to size, we hauled the pieces up the stairs, glued along each joist, maneuvered the wood into place and then screwed into the joists securely.
We have shade!!!Looking up the stairsPreparing to place a floor sectionDropping it into place after gluingSecuring with screwsTop ViewThat was a lot of flooring!Another top view
We have spent a good deal of time this week and last week working on the stairs that will lead to the bonus room over the garage (note: future WWII Militaria museum and research center). Today we finally finished up the basic framework and then added the wall framing for the laundry room and pantry. We did have to make a few changes on the fly as we got into the actual work of calculating the step height and depth, and ended up adding one more step to the staircase than our original plan called out. This caused us to have a few less inches of space in the entry to the laundry room and also caused us to have a slightly larger space in the pantry. We also had to modify the entrance to the laundry room to a pocket door framing to allow adequate space. The photos show some of the progress, including the finished framing of kitchen and dining room:
Staircase as seen from the pantryView of the very spacious pantryLaundry room entry -- pocket doorKitchen framingDining Room
As we enter into the second week of interior framing, more progress is being made. Yesterday we got a good start on the walls for the kitchen and music room (after we swamped out the slab from the heavy rain). Today we set the floor joists for the garage bonus room. We still have a bit more work to do on that part, but it definitely is taking shape. Here are a few photos:
Well, with a few interruptions (Dr’s appointments, etc.), we got the first 5 days of interior framing done with a very short day this morning. Thus far, we have the entire north part of the house mostly complete, so here are a few pictures to try to give you an idea:
View from living room toward MBedroom WallFrom Living Rm toward hallwayView from Living Rm down hall - Powder bath at end.View from MBR down hall to Boys' RmsView into one of the boy's bathrooms... toilet on left, shower on rightDesk nook and closet in one of boys' roomsView from corner of one of boys' bedrooms toward door
Well… it has been a long, hot week of framing! We finished up the last section of the exterior wall framing this morning with the 2nd garage door opening.
Here is a trailer-top-view of the building so far:
Exterior Framing
Next week we begin the interior wall framing… then comes sheathing, staircase and then getting the hired crew to set the trusses and build the hobby room (a.k.a. military history research center) over the garage. We’re getting ready to order windows and exterior doors. Won’t it be great when the house is dried in?
OK… this is going to be a really short post. We are on our way to pick up our boys from Mom and Dad’s, but wanted to post a photo of the progress thus far. We have done several short walls, and have most of the wall between the house and garage cut and ready for assembly. The hoist works really well on shorter sections of wall… we even lifted the laundry room wall with the window over the water supply line without any difficulty. We had a bit of delay this morning due to a little rain. We spent some time covering all the wood and getting tools out of the rain, but soon were able to continue.
