Framing - Week 6

Big changes this week with most of the walls going up. This is when you really get a sense of the space. Since most of this happened while Deborah was back in Baltimore for her 35th high school reunion, she is in for a big surprise when she comes home.

 Front lanai taking shape.

 Second bedroom with exposed beam ceiling.

 Corner where my new studio will be with a pair of windows on one wall and a sliding glass door on another.

 We had seven guys on hand to lift this wall.  I was one of them so no one was left to take a picture of the raising.

 Jake sands the roof rafters, which will hopefully go up next week.

 Kitchen on the right; entrance to screened lanai on the left.

Here's where we stand now. That tall center wall is over 16 feet high.

Framing

We're five weeks into framing the house, with a couple of days missed due to Hurricane Iselle, which was mostly a nonevent for our part of the island.  We cleaned up the building site, lashed all the materials down, and even boarded up a couple of windward-side windows on our rental and our neighbor's house.  But Iselle ended up hitting the opposite side of the island. They got hammered but we saw mostly wind with only a little rain.  Our power was out overnight and few branches blew down, but that was it.  The next hurricane, "Julio," veered off to the north and didn't affect us at all.

My framer usually works alone but is allowing me to help him, so I've been putting in long hours at the jobsite.  I'm paying him by the hour so the more I do the less it costs me.  Of course, not being used to manual labor I now find my hands to be sore all the time and my body is covered in an assortment of cuts, scrapes, and bruises.  Amazingly, I have yet to smash my thumb with a hammer, although I did manage to drop a concrete block on my foot.  Good thing I was wearing boots.

 Start of the post and pier foundation.

 Girders, posts and stem walls.

 Lots of lumber.

 Lots of tarps (it's been raining).

 Diagonal bracing for the posts.

 Floor joists and blocking.

 Subfloor installed.  The white portion is tongue & groove planks, which have been primed.  The rest is plywood subfloor.

Walls going up.

Some of us work harder than others.