Roof Trusses and Exterior Posts, Kitchen Wall

 November 23, 2014 Sunday

We found a framing contractor to work with us to put up the roof trusses and do the exterior and interior framing.  For the exterior framing there are 3 areas that need to be built out before the trusses can be installed. This included the Car port to the North, the Back Door entrance to the South and the Patio to the West. The Posts and Beams in these areas are load bearing and part of the look that we wanted for the house.  The posts and beams are 10"x 10" Douglas Fir.  Each beam is attached to the house with a metal plate that was custom made for the location.  Doug had these made here in Hillsboro.  He painted them a brown to protect them from rusting.

Inside the house the shear wall that will support the stairs and be the kitchen wall  was installed by the framing crew. They also installed the upstairs floor joists and built the stairs.  Pictures below.

Then the Roof Trusses were delivered on 11/21/2014.  Over the next two days the trusses for the main portion of the house were installed.  When I drove home Friday (11/21/14) morning I could see the carport trusses from the highway. That was very exciting. Setting the Roof Trusses took the better part of 2 days.  The Clear stories that we have on the top of the roof were a driving factor. The Clear stories have supporting box around them to support the weight of the Clear story and the weight of partial trusses supported by the box. On either side of the Clear story is  girder truss to carry and transfer the roof load. The distance between the girder trusses  had to be precise as the connecting girder truss was premade. Day one all of the Carport trusses were set and all of the large girder trusses were set.  On the morning of the second day we checked the positions of the larger girder trusses in the main living area. The crew had measured to the outside of the girder instead to the inside, this made everything off by  6 inches. These trusses needed to be moved. By end of the second day with a second crane truck we had  both of Clear stories boxed in and most of the main house trusses up.   

Chimney Rock and Sub Floor

 

November 22, 2014

We have been working on the chimney rock and sub floor. 

After the block chimney was constructed we selected the decorative rock for the outside.  This required several decisions to be made. First we need to select the rock. Then the color of the mortar and next the width of the gap between the rocks and the depth of mortar. We drove around several neighborhoods looking at rock and mortar.  We selected the rock pretty quickly. For mortar the mason made several samples for us. He applied some rock at the base of the chimney so we could make our final decsion. Then he started to apply the rock to the top of the chimney where he needed the tall scaffolding to reach.  We wanted to get this rock work completed so we could remove the scaffolding and start working on the roof.

Pictures of the Chimney are attached below.

At the same  time we were installing the sub floor. The plywood for the sub floor is 1 and 1/8 inches thick.  Marty and Doug placed all the plywood expect for two sheets. This hole will allow us to get under the floor to do all the work for plumbing, air ducts and electrical.

Pictures of the sub floor are attached below.