Monthly Archives: October 2014

Progress Update: Oct 29, 2014

For the past week we have been slugging it out, and have gotten quite a lot done.  We assembled some scaffolding across the back of the house so we could complete the final row of sheathing, finish off nailing all the sheathing down, and install the three windows on that wall.  We also built and installed a proper set of stairs to give us a proper entry through the patio door.

We got a little rain during the week, and I’d thankfully planned ahead and had some lumber delivered in advance, so I was able to continue working indoors (which is mostly dry even when it rains now) and start framing up the interior walls – it really changes  the feel of the space to finally start properly defining the rooms with actual walls!

We also continued installing soffit and fascia boards, and put up some of the steel flashing/eave trim which is one of the last steps before we can install the steel roof and we will finally be weathertight!  We have only the soffits left to install on the one gable end of the house so we are pretty happy about that.  As you can see some of our tarpaper was tattered by the strong winds we had last night – we will actually replace this with the superior Ice & Water barrier as it can handle rougher conditions than the tarpaper!

The other thing we got started on was installing a few courses of the tongue & groove finish board which completes the ceiling above the porch.  Once we get that closed in it should stop a lot of the wind from coming into the house!WP_20141029_08_23_23_Pro

Thanks for reading and sorry for the delay with this post, but we are in just such a rush to get everything done before the snow arrives.  Of course, yesterday when my mother and I were working out there, I had unfortunately forgotten to put my steel-toed boots on – and on the one day I needed them.  We were moving some scaffolding and I dropped it on my foot and broke my baby toe  🙁  So I will need to take a couple days rest to recover, before we can continue!  Just another reminder to always be thinking about safety first!

More windows and the patio door

The past few days we have been getting a lot of rain so trying to get much done has been a challenge.  We started out by finishing framing in the gable ends, and then installing another course of sheathing on the far side of the house so that we could wrap the first course of Tyvek around the front and that side of the house and get the windows installed there.

After that I took a slight break from the house building to get a load of hay bales delivered (from a farmer up the road who donated them to our cause) to stack around the bottom of the RV to help us get through the colder nights a bit better – this actually makes a fair difference in how cold it gets in here!

Fortifying the RV with hay bales
Fortifying the RV with hay bales

Then we got back to the house, finished wrapping the Tyvek on the front and far side and installed another four windows:

Finally, I hired in some help to get the patio door and big picture window installed, both are extremely heavy so doing those alone was out of the question.  I’ll have to re-apply the Tyvek around the patio door once we finish the last course of sheathing on that back wall, but still, it’s a huge improvement.

Tomorrow we will, I think, continue installing more soffit and fascia boards (assuming the rain clears out) so we can finally get the rest of the ice & water barrier, and tar-paper, down on the roof so the water stops coming in!  Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Completed Roof Sheathing

The past week has been fairly hectic as you can imagine – it was quite chilly (frost for a few days) that really got me motivated to keep at it and get stuff done.  Of course now it is back to >20 degrees C and muggy as heck, such is the turn of the seasons.

At any rate, I managed to get the roof sheathing completely installed:

And even managed to start trying out installing the “ice & water barrier” that goes down over the sheathing, under the metal roof:

This stuff is super heavy, and very difficult to unroll and stick down.  If you look closely you can see I’ve built a kind of handle for the roll, so I can unroll a bit at a time and then tack the hammer to the roof, to make sure the roll doesn’t get away from me.

Today we got some scaffolding delivered to make it easier to finish up the rest of the exterior wall sheathing, and I did a test installing a 12′ piece of HardiBoard vented soffit – super long so I had to build a couple temporary braces i can rest the soffit on until I get it nailed up – you can see that in these pictures:

We’ll continue to set up scaffolding and work our way around the house  to finish off nailing the exterior sheathing (many sheets just tacked in place) and we should be able to keep the scaffolding in place for doing the Tyvek house-wrap and for installing the siding as well.  Sure makes things easier than going up and down a ladder!

Take care, and thanks for reading!

More roof work and the front door

The past couple days have been pretty busy, with lots getting done in between the rain.  I have about half the roof covered in sheathing so far, and expect to start the next half tomorrow.

Getting 4’x8′ sheets of OSB up onto the roof is no easy task, especially working by yourself, so I built a rig on the back side of the house, that I use to get the sheets up there – I can push them up half way standing on the ground, and they rest in place on my rig, from there I can go up on the roof and lock a C-clamp onto the end of the sheet and pull it up onto the roof, climbing a series of “stairs” I set up for the task, the dropping the sheets down the front side of the roof into position.

Also today my mom came out to lend a hand, and we managed to get some of the Tyvek house-wrap installed on the porch, and put the front door and a smaller window in.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Solo again

Well, I’m back solo again and just wrapping up the framing for the roof.  As mentioned in the last post, all the rafters were in place, but at each gable end of the house, the roof has to be extended out over the side of the house.  This is a little tricky to do alone, but I came up with a pretty good system that was safe and reasonably easy.  I got the first gable end done today and am prepped up to do the other end when the rain stops (starts tomorrow morning, apparently).

I discovered one small issues with my process to install those gable rafters, resulting in this minor injury:

Small injuries abound
Small injuries abound

Also, we forgot to post this before, but Paul managed to finish off putting the shingles on the shed roof while he was here, it is so great to have that task done and off the list!

Completed shed roof
Completed shed roof

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, and thanks for reading!

Roof rafters complete!

Yesterday and today Heathers uncle Paul and I managed to finish installing the last eight pairs of roof rafters, and then started removing the temporary bracing, and putting in the structural supports that hold the roof up from here on out.  We also framed in a small wall in the attic space, above the porch, so we can separate the area above the porch off from the rest of the attic space (better for insulating!)

Here’s a few pictures of the progress to date:

Tomorrow we should be able to finish up the supports, then after a couple more small details, start putting the sheathing on the roof!