A New House – Episode 9 – I Second That! (Storey that is)

We are quickly approaching THE BIG DAY, THE BIG KAHUNA, That life episode of episodes (i.e., son Ben getting married this week!), so the house project is winding down temporarily.

But in the last two weeks we have layed down the 2nd floor joists and subfloor, started building 2nd floor walls and family room gable ends and chimney chase, and finished fine grading around the house.

The floor joists supporting the 2nd floor span a full 25’ across the house, so they were a little beefier and wider (14” vs 12”) than the 1st floor that had a bearing wall to help with support. While heavyish, we managed a way to get them up there and trimmed in place – learning trick from the first floor.

 

I really like these i-joists – light and straight. But don’t assume the factory ends are square (lesson learned)

 

This an “LVL” beam (laminated veneer lumber) that is needed to create the stairwell opening.

 

Me. In the house. 

 

i built a makeshift “boom” for the tractor to help tilt up the 18’ chimney chase. Worked great!  It would helped with those gable ends for the family room.

 

Deb has become a master with the sheathing nailer. And (unlike me) doesn’t mind the high ladder work.

 

Deb work for days finishing the grading around the house. She did a superb job.

 

The outside part of the chase is done, but we still have inside work to do.

 

We’ve started walls on the 2nd floor. Those taller walls are the shed dormers. The other side will look the same.

A New House – Episode 8 – More Walls

 

It has been a while since i last posted our progress. Been rather busy framing walls, grading, and constructing a mini foundation….

Walls continue to go up.  We’re doing 9’ walls in the main floor.

got to have lots of bracing to hold things up!

 

Deb has been the tractor queen this week, doing a great job backfilling and grading around the house   .. and nailing

 

  

Exterior walls are framed except the right end which we’ll leave open for now so we can bring lumber and plywood for the second floor.

 

Since the “wall incident” now all walls are framed in smaller sections

We have our excavation guy back to remove “mount Reed”  - a big pile of high clay dirt. He moved it to the hill and dumped it over the side.

 

Plywood covering the window openings are cut out afterwards

 

The french drain taking water from around the house .

 

 

We’ll have a fireplace in the family room, so we had to build a short wall to support the chimney chase.

 

Nice lake view from the family room. We’ll have a french door here with windows on each side.

 

All exterior walls are framed and sheathed (except end wall)

now doing interior walls before starting the second floor joists.

 

A New House – Episode 7 - Walls

As the thunder booms over the lake, I thought it would be a good time to pause and reflect. Construction safety 101 – When tilting up a really heavy 16’w x 9’H wall with sheathing, it is always a good idea to have good bracing… otherwise, that big heavy wall might tip all the way over over and nearly crush you as you stand on the ladder beneath it while beating on it with a sledge hammer … hypothetically of course.

Aside from a teaching moment we had today, the project is going well. The floor sheathing is on and 1st floor walls are going up.

The floor sheathing is glued and nailed down with ring-shank nails. The glue is polyurethane foam floor adhesive. Great stuff and easy to apply.

But be careful to wear gloves, otherwise your hands might become one big mass of polyurethane that has to be “mechanically removed”. Dumbass.

 

See of the second day I am smart enough to wear gloves!

 

We successfully repaired the overturned wall and it looks just like new!

The remaining walls will be built without sheathing to reduce weight and simplify and safety-ize the tilting process. The down side is that we’ll have to climb ladders to apply the 4x9 sheets of OSB. Which I hate.

A New House – Episode 6 – Gads, Mugsy … I’ve Been Framed!

We had a great visit with Jason and Xin Xin last weekend and took some time off to relax and have some fun fishing, golf, flying the RC planes, and BBQing. We also played some great board games.

Jason teaching Xin Xin the basics

 

Xin Xin mostly played with the cat, but also took time to play with Tucker.

Jason caught two nice trout on the lake and we decided to smoke them  to take home.

 

Flying the RC planes was a blast and we never lost a plane! (crashed a few time though). Dogfight!

When they left, we dove right in to start framing.

This is our first foray into using engineered lumber to build the house. Engineered lumber is something made by a machine as opposed to just milled like 2x6’s etc. Typically engineered lumber is made from oriented strand board (OSB) or plywood material, and you can get pretty much any length as opposed to dimensional lumber where 20’ is about the maximum. Here we have i-joists (right), OSB rim joists )middle top), and LVL’s (laminated veneer lumber (left). We’re using this material mostly for the floors, but that thicker beam on the left is the ridge beam for the main part of the house (32’ long).

 

Framing a basement wall.

 

The tractor helped tilt up the heavier walls.

The important walls in the basement are done, so the 1st floor framing can begin. See the nifty arched header going into the TV room?

 

I can’t convey how great it is to have a wife who is willing and able to lift, haul and hammer right along side me. These 26’ i-joists are part of the 1st floor. 

Today we finished framing the 1st floor structure.  7 work days since we started framing. Tomorrow we dive into laying down the 3/4” T&G OSB subfloor, which are in 4’X8’ sheets. Then on to framing the 1st floor walls.

A New House – Episode 5 – Don’t be a Slab … and Stop Graveling!

 

… so as I was saying … a couple days after the walls were poured, they came back and started to remove the forms. Surprisingly this took a couple of days because of the cleaning they had to do to reuse the forms.

While they worked, we painted the outside walls with that goopy damp proofing stuff.

When they left we installed the radon vent pipe and ordered 25 yards of pea gravel (aka “radon rock”) for the interior of the basement under the slab

 

Moving 25 yards or pea gravel BY HAND, is a lot of work for 50 somethings.

We also ordered 20 yards of 2” washed rock for the perimeter under and around the perforated drain pipe.   Good thing we have a tractor.

 

After cleaning out a nice area around the footings, we started by laying down a 2” layer of rock, then laid the 4” perforated pipe on top of that layer and against the footing. The pipe we used had a filter sock on it to keep sediment out of the pipe.

 

After the pipe was laid, we poured more gravel on top, about 12”. Then another piece of 3’ wide filter material on top of the rock around the perimeter, then more rock on that. After a month, the concrete will be 100% set and we can backfill the remaining amount.

 

Today, the concrete guys came out to pour the slab. Holy cow they were good. Smooth as glass!

Yay! now we can start on framing! The tractor really helped with the unloading of the engineered lumber* delivered today.

* More about engineered lumber in the next episode … stay tuned.