Friday, July 24, 2009

Tongue & Groove Up, Roof here we come...

Well, last week it took us three days to get the tongue & groove (T&G) up on 1 half of the roof. We had Stewart & Taylor up on the roof laying T&G and nailing it in place. We had our friend John in the scissor lift passing them the boards and tools, and Rachel on the ground staining the T&G and passing the boards to John in the lift. With 4 of us, it took 3 days to get it all done. This week there were only 3 and they got it done in a day & a half! Pretty impressive. They figured it out and got some rhythm going...



(Check out our cathedral ceilings. Great acoustics in there!)









(A picture of the rafters & T&G cut and edged)

Once all the T&G was up, we spent some time making sure the roof was square, and marking the edges. Once all was square and marked, we cut the edges around the whole roof. We are doing what is called a "Turkey Tail," on the front and back of the roof.
(Nice clean edges. It's got a nice cottage feel)
Once all the edges were cut, we began the process of laying 15lb. felt paper over the T&G.
This will help to protect the T&G from the rain, but will also keep our spray-foam insulation from seeping through as well.
(Taylor in an awkward upside down position hanging from a rope on a 10/12 roof)
(Stewart & Taylor stapling the felt to the T&G)
(A picture of the garage from the back side)
(Not bad for a days work: Nice clean edges and felt in place)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Chugging Along!

We have been chipping away over the past two weeks, moving forward with great strides! Once Stewart had all the rafters in place, he notched them out and got them all level. Then the guys began drilling holes and pounding rebar in both ends of each rafter, at the ridge pole and the top wall log.


(Good-bye Forklift! It's been real.)


While the guys were finishing up the rafters, Rachel was staining every single piece of Tongue & Groove pine to go over the rafters. This will be our ceiling. We went with Golden Pecan.





Then, it was on to the bird blocks, which fit in between the rafters. Stewart, Taylor, & Adam took care of that.
















(Stewart & Adam fitting the bird blocks)









Once the bird blocks were in place, Stew & Taylor got geared up to start putting up the tongue & groove (T&G). Taylor is a great climber, so he got all of the webbing set up and hooked in at the Ridge Pole. This is a very important step because we have a 10/12 roof (that's a pretty steep pitch).


















(Day 2 of putting up T&G, starting to get a rhythm going)








(Roof crew shot: Stew, John, Taylor)









(Photo-shoot with the "Man-scouts")









(It may not look that steep, but with a 10/12 pitch, you slide right off that thing without being hooked in)











(Rachel staining T&G, and passing up boards to the guys)






(Day 3 putting up T&G. We had a hard rain that day, so the logs have a beautiful color to them!)







Day 3 we finished the T&G for the first side!! Yeah! We figured out too that you can hide the seams of the boards on the rafters, which looks better and actually makes the roof stronger too. One more reason we are glad we are doing the garage first...













Monday, July 6, 2009

Rafters Up & In Place!

We are so blessed and thankful for what an awesome time we have been having building our garage over the past month. It has been so much fun, even in the dead of summer, when the heat is ridiculous, it has been awesome. This past week was really low humidity, along with a nice breeze, so we took advantage of that.




We started the week by cutting all of the overdangles. Stewart cut them around 2 1/2 feet or so. Then he finished cutting out the side door and the garage doors.


We then got to work staining all of the rafters. We went with Sedona Red, which we think will go nicely with the red flecks that are naturally occuring in the logs. Once we put the clear polyurethane coat on the logs, it will bring the red out and will tie together nicely with the rafters. (At least we hope so!!)


Once the rafters were stained, we began setting them up on the wall with our toy (Forklift). I'm really sad we have to get rid of that thing this week, it has been so much fun, and has sure made everything thus far alot easier!



(Josh & Stewart pulling rafters over cap log)
Once all the rafters were up there, Stewart got up on the Ridge Pole and moved them all into place.


Short and sweet. I'm putting several pictures up of the rafters from different angles. It's really starting to feel like something in there.