Introduction
The 57 acres that comprise Cedar Ridge Farm are located in the beautiful rolling hills of South Central Kentucky. My wife, our four children, and I are on a homesteading adventure as we work toward increased self-sufficiency. We grow much of our own food and enjoy being in touch with the agrarian roots of our lives.
One of the major projects we have undertaken is the building of our own home. The house we're building has three major distinguishing features: 1. we're building it without incurring any debt; 2. it is a timber frame structure; and 3. the exterior walls will be plastered straw bales. We live debt and mortgage free, and building our house with that approach makes perfect sense. Large timbers in a home possess a beauty and project a sense of strength, stability, and warmth that we want in our home. Straw bale walls provide insulation and make ecological sense. This blog is a record of our home-building project.
Yesterday, I made a trip to Lowes (I hate giving them my hard-earned money) and bought windows for the cupola and some tar paper for over the roof sheeting. In the afternoon, I sheeted the cupola so that I could install the windows. I figured I could get at least one window in before it got dark. Once I got started, I didn't stop until I had all four in. It's kind of exciting to have the first four windows on our house!
Since it wasn't raining today and the rafters were in place, it was time to tackle the roof sheeting. I bought 44 sheets of 7/16" OSB about a month ago for this purpose. My original plan was to save the $300 or so I spent on OSB by using pallet boards to sheet the roof. They would've worked alright, I'm sure, but the OSB speeds up the process and makes a more even surface.
My dad (who I am very thankful for) and I started the sheeting process on the front slope of the roof. This is the 8:12 pitch side. The area to be sheeted was 20' by 40'. It actually went quite well. We were able to get the whole front side sheeted in about four hours. After lunch, we used nearly four rolls of 30# felt to paper over the OSB. I didn't take pictures of the work in progress because I was working. I did take a few pictures after lunch during the brief period of sunshine. Once we finished the tar papering, it was too dark to take any more. There'll be more photos when we work on the back of the roof.
1 comment:
Lovely pictures! Reminds me of my first cupola that my dad built when i was a wee kid. So long ago but I still remember how it looked on the roof. Thanks for bringing me back. Maybe now it is time for me to buy a cupola :)
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