Straw in the house (and a couple of other things)

We finished unloading and stacking the straw in the house around 7:00 last evening. It was after 8:00 by the time I had my chores done which involves milking two cows. I didn’t take any photos yesterday, but I did take some this morning.

The straw was baled this summer after the wheat was harvested. I bought them from Tyler who lives near Bowling Green, Kentucky. He’s a very nice individual. He kept the bales in his barn until I was ready for them here since I didn’t have any place to keep them dry until the house was far enough along to put them in the middle of it. The photo to the right shows how the house looked when I made the deal to purchase the straw from Tyler two months ago. As you can see, there wasn’t anywhere to stack and store bales securely out of the weather.

I bought 300 straw bales four years ago (has it really been that long?) which I stored in the barn. I’m still going to use some of them, but several haven’t survived because of various factors. The cows ate as many as they could get a hold of (they had to really stretch and reach, but they did it anyway). Some were used for animal bedding. Some got wet from a couple small roof leaks. So, I needed some fresh, new bales.

To the left you can see what 300 bales stacked inside the house looks like. It makes it look a lot like a barn! It took about 40 minutes to unload the trailer. The trailer Tyler hauled them on (he delivered them) was a 30 foot monster. I thought we would shuttle the bales about 100 at a time down the hill to the house with my truck and trailer. But, he was willing to drive it down. It should be mentioned that it is a gravel driveway on a fairly steep hill. The photo to the right is of our driveway going down the hill which was taken last April. It’s hard to appreciate in this picture just how steep it is.

After the weight of the trailer and bales pushed the truck a bit on the gravel at the top, we chained my 4x4 truck to the back of the trailer to provide some extra braking power and made it the rest of the way down just fine. He was then able to drive near the house and back the trailer up to the porch from which point we unloaded and stacked the bales in the house.

Tyler had to wait until he finished work yesterday before he could deliver the bales. He had about an hour to drive, and it was a quarter till 6:00 when he got here. So, during the preceding hours, Dad, Jon, and I worked on the house. We framed interior walls for the mudroom, laundry room, and sewing room/study. In two places these walls butt up against the straw bale wall. I also wanted the ones against the timber frame there to help provide structural support for the straw bales going upstairs as in this section there is not a bale wall below them as there is in the other sections.

We also cut an installed some 2x4 blocking along the inside edge of the porch between the vertical stringers. We held the porch floor boards out the thickness of a 2x4 so that we could come back and insert this blocking. It helps to seal up along the bottom of the wall framed by the vertical strings. The starter strip for the siding will nail into this blocking.

Last week, Dad and I planed a few more boards for the upstairs subfloor. These are boards that I bought as cull lumber from a local sawmill and which have been stickered to dry the last two years. We didn’t get the job done because the motor in the planer was having some problems. It’s currently at a shop to be repaired. Once I get it back, we’ll finish planing the boards and then edge them so we can install them in the house. That’s the last major task before stacking bales for the walls.

After finishing our tasks at the house and before the straw bales arrived, I worked on making a bale needle. This will be used to push strings through straw bales in order to retie them to shorter lengths as necessary. It will also be used to push/pull strings through the walls to tie them to framing members. I only need to weld on a handle and do a little polishing, and it should be good to go. I’ll share a photo after it’s finished.

  

As you can see in the photo above, we finished installing the window and door bucks in the house last week. We also added additional vertical stringers as necessary. It’s quite exciting to be almost ready to put up the walls!

Porch floor

With the porch roof put on (only two ridge caps left to complete), it was time to start laying the porch floor. With my dad’s help, I started putting boards down on Monday.

In the spring of 2009, a friend let me cut down some beech trees on his property and have the logs. Dad and I dragged the logs out of the woods and staged them for milling last fall. Finally, a friend of mine brought his Woodmizer sawmill over to saw the logs for me early this summer. We brought them home and stickered (stacked with sticks between the layers so that air can get all around the boards) them near the house, waiting for the time when they would become our porch floor.

We hauled several over near the cut-off saw, and Dad began squaring one end. The design of the porch is for the floor to run from the house out. This allows the boards to be laid down without concern for their overall length, as long as they are long enough to allow some overhang at the edge of the porch. Once the boards are screwed down, I snap a line and cut them off to the right length with my circular saw. Then, they are all the same length.

After dad squared one end, I would put a board in place and then screw it down with deck screws. This takes a fair bit of time. We were able to complete almost 30 feet of floor along the front of the house on Monday. Yesterday, I finished up the last four feet and cut the excess off the edge leaving a nice overhang. It looks quite nice.

Today, Jon came over to work. He, Dad, and I worked on the porch floor on the back of the house. When I cut the trees and bucked them into saw logs, I was planning for the porch to be 9 feet wide. It turns out that it is actually 9.5 feet wide. So, some of the boards are almost but not quite long enough. So, we had to get creative.

On the back, we cut short lengths and screwed them near the house. Then, we ran longer lengths out from that. This made good use of our material with little waste, and it will work fine for the floor.

We completed the back porch floor and started on the east side of the house before quitting for the day. On Friday, we’ll continue where we left off.

Porch roof

Last week I was able to work during the first half of the week. The job at hand was the porch roof, continuing to install the sheets of metal.

For the front of the house, I cut three inches off of the metal so that the amount extending past the fascia board would be correct. I wasn’t able to extend the metal as far under the house roof as I expected. So, the full 11 feet I ordered was too long. They were quite easy to cut using a metal cutting blade in the circular saw. We cut 7 sheets at a time (I needed 14).

When I ordered the metal, I planned on using some of the 10 foot sheets I already had for the corners, expecting the color to be similar (I ordered “rainbow”). However, of the 50 sheets I ordered, 48 were galvanized and two were black. I used the galvanized metal on the sides, the front, and all four corners. Using it on the corners meant that I didn’t have enough to extend across the back.

So, I used some of the metal roofing sheets I already had. The only problem was that they are only 10 feet long, not eleven. This left a gap of about a foot at the top near the house. Although I planned to cut pieces and put them over this gap, I didn’t get that completed until today.

Before I began the roof, it occurred to me that I hadn’t planned for condensation issues over the areas the roof covers which are part of the house, like the kitchen, mudroom, utility room, and sewing room/study. I asked about doing so at the metal supply place, and they suggested using radiant barrier insulation under the metal. It turns out that this is a common method used by builders in the area. So, that’s what I did.

 

 

  

Three sheets

The weather today was much nicer than the preceding days. It was cooler (mid-80s), and the humidity was lower. There were several times I just had to stand still and enjoy how refreshing the breeze felt.

Dad and Danny helped this morning. Dad and I nailed on purlins while Danny cut the individual boards to length and handed them up to us. We were able to finish the east side, get all of the purlins on the back, and start the west side before lunch.

After lunch, Danny had some other work to attend to. So, Dad and I worked on finishing the purlins on the west side. We got them all nailed on without any problems.

Then, we laid out three sheets of metal on the front to figure out how they fit under the existing roof metal. We’re able to slide them up under alright, but we’ll need to cut off about 3 inches from the sheets on the front in order to make sure that the amount the metal overhangs is not too much. The metal can’t be slid up under the other metal far enough because of the rafters on the house (they butt up against these). I don’t need or want 4 inches of metal overhanging the edge. The goal is 1.5 inches, an appropriate amount for the gutters that I will eventually install around the porch.

After figuring out the front, we moved the sheets of metal to the east side to see how they lined up. They were fine. So, since we had them up there already, I went ahead and screwed them to the purlins. If we have no problems, it won’t be too difficult to get the rest of the roofing metal installed early next week.

 

Purlins and fascia board

Although I haven’t posted in a few days, I’ve continued working on the house. Jon hasn’t been able to come over to work since last week, but my dad helped me three days. I’ll be getting more done today.

Dad and I finished the porch on the west side of the house, putting up the two posts and the 4x6 headers. We also got all of the porch rafters up, including the corner over the root cellar and the corner that over what will be the summer kitchen. It’ll just be porch initially. Later, I’ll close it in for the summer kitchen (might only screen it – we haven’t decided yet).

On Tuesday of this week, I brought home some cement board siding. I have some more to bring home. I’d hoped to get it yesterday, but I had to change two tires on the trailer (one did not make it home intact on Tuesday). The tires are ready to go now, and I’ve unloaded all of the siding from the trailer.

On Wednesday, Dad and I started installing purlins for the porch roof on the front of the house. After we got going on that, we decided to put up fascia board all the way around. I had some 1x6s that worked great for this. We were able to put up all of the fascia board and get the purlins completed on the front and partially done on the east side.

The plan for today is to continue installing purlins so that we can start getting the metal roof on.

 

 

Porch rafters

After three days of working on the house this week, the porch on the front, east side, and back of the house is now ready for the purlins. Yesterday, Danny and I installed the rest of the header beams that were still needed and worked on some of the rafters.

Before Danny came down the hill to help, I put up a header board across the front of the house to attach the porch rafters to. Originally, I thought I was going to attach the rafters on the front to the girts on the front of the timber frame. Previously, we put up the vertical stringers across the front, attaching them to a 2x4 we nailed to the house rafters. In order to attach the porch rafters to the timber frame, I would have to notch each one to fit over the 2x4 at the top of the vertical stringers.

It occurred to me that I could put a header up on the vertical stringers, notching it around the rafters under the metal roof. This actually worked well and was quite easy to do. Once it was up, the rafters, which could be cut to the same length as the rest of them around the house, were fairly easy to put up.

We used the porch rafters to assure that the porch posts were plumb toward the house. We plumbed them the other direction when attaching the headers on Monday.

After we finished the rafters on the front of the house, we cut the remaining headers to go on top of the posts along the back and the northeast corner. After putting these up, I laid out the location for the rafters along the back and the east side. We then attached the rafters that were nearest the posts in order to tie them to the house and to make sure they were plumb in that direction.

This morning, I had two posts to plumb and tie to the house with rafters. Once I had those two up, my dad came down to help me. Jon wasn’t able to make it, and Danny had another job to work on.

Before starting on the rafters, I cut several rafters to length out of some of the 2x6s I bought on Sunday. Dad and I worked on getting all the rafters up between the ones already attached near the posts. Once we had all of these done, we started on the rafters at the northeast corner of the porch.

The corners will have a hip roof. I’d previously set aside 2x6s of sufficient length for each corner. I’m doubling the rafters on the corners since they have a greater span and will be carrying more of the roof load than the other rafters.

We figured out the angles we needed and began by putting the first two 2x6s in place. Each of the rafters we’ve installed for the porch has had to be notched to fit onto the header. I’ve found that it’s easier to use a chisel and hammer for this than it is to use a saw. We would put each rafter into place, mark the outside edge of the header on the bottom of it, take it down, and then cut the notch.

For the corner rafters, the notch is cut at an angle. It wasn’t too hard to chisel it so that it fit tightly while the rafters met up at the corner on the house side. We left these 2x6s long to be cut later after we had the rafters that but into this main one installed.

We measured, cut, and put up the other corner rafters one at a time, notching them as we went. Once they were all up, we snapped a chalk line to mark where they needed to be cut off for the proper overhang. It didn’t take long to cut them.

After lunch we worked on the southeast corner rafters. We were able to finish this corner before we quit this evening. We also moved supplies to be ready to get the corner above the root cellar done next.

So, the porch rafters along the front, east side, and back of the house are all up. It’s looking good!

The porch posts are vertical

Well, all except two of them.

In April of last year, dad and I milled the posts for our porch (post 1 & post 2). Since then, they’ve been stacked in the timber frame waiting to be used. Today, it was finally time to begin installing them.

The process was fairly simple, but did take a bit of time. The first task was to square one end of each post and then cut them to length. Squaring an end involves cutting it on four sides with the circular saw and finishing the cut with a handsaw (about 3/4” in the center).

The posts are all set over concrete piers and tie into the beams used to frame the porch deck. Being cedar, they aren’t too heavy even though they are full 6x6s. We set them up to vertical and toe nailed them into the deck framing while holding them mostly plumb. Then, I drilled holes to embed two 7” lag screws into the bottom of each post, coming up at an angle through the 6x8 beam upon which each partially sits.

As we set the posts, we also began to put up the 4x6 header on top. These small beams butt to one another on top of the posts. Since the 4x6s vary in height, I’m cutting them to 5 inches to provide a consistent height for the rafters which will sit on the header.

By the end of the day, we had all but two posts set and the header installed across the front and most of the east side. It shouldn’t take too long to set the last two posts and finish the header. I may put up some rafters on the front tomorrow.

  

Another week’s worth of work is done

It feels good to get things done on the house. We are on schedule for being ready for the straw bales by the end of July. If our progress is good next week, I’ll call the guy I’m buying them to arrange for delivery sometime during the last week of July (which isn’t far away).

This morning we continued putting up vertical stringers on the west side of the utility room and mudroom. We got the north side of this section done on Wednesday. Having done the other wall of stringers, this wall went quickly. Once we had rafters up, we were able to frame the end walls with the vertical stringers.

I was glad to see that the length of the north wall above the root cellar and the west wall above the root cellar (and past it) were the same. I actually find this remarkable because the rooms here are the result of different sections of foundation built at different times coming together. I feel blessed.

At lunch time, it was beginning to rain a little bit. The rain didn’t continue, though. So, we were able to continue work in the afternoon.

We framed the kitchen with the vertical stringers for these bale walls. There is a door on the west wall that will lead into the summer kitchen. There is a six foot wide by 36” tall window on the south wall that will be above the sink. There is a 36” by 36” window on the east wall. We’ll be building the bucks for the doors and windows later. When they’re installed, things will look different.

We put up all of the rafters above the sewing room/study, utility room, mudroom, and kitchen. I’m planning on buying some more 2x6s from the local guy who I’ve bought other lumber from. I bought two exterior doors from him yesterday. One will be the front door and the other will exit from the sewing room/study onto the back porch.

I also picked up the roofing metal I ordered for the porch. I have some 10’ pieces of metal, but they wouldn’t allow for enough overhang. So, I ordered 11’ pieces of ‘rainbow’ metal. Out of the 50 pieces I received, two are black and 48 are galvanized.

Next week, we should be able to get the porch posts up and the header that goes between the posts put on. Then, we’ll put on the porch rafters and, hopefully, the purlins so we can put on the roofing metal.

More vertical stringers

Jon and I started in on the west side of the house today. After moving the materials and tools we needed, ripping a few more 2x8s into 2x4s, and laying out the positions for the stringers, they installed quite well. So, the majority of the stringers are in around the timber frame. The ones that remain are shorter ones that will be below and above the window/door bucks.

After finishing the west side stringers, we took a little time to do some figuring on the pitch for the porch roof (also the pitch for the roof over the kitchen, summer kitchen, mudroom, utility room, and sewing room/study area). I don’t want the outside wall of these rooms and the outside of the porch too low. We set up a board so we could visualize the pitch and take some accurate measurements.

With this figuring done, we moved our efforts to the wall on the outside edge above the root cellar, walls for the sewing room/study and utility room. There will be one large window in each of these rooms.

We put up a header on the vertical stringers for attaching rafters to the house. We then nailed 2x4s cut to the right height along the back wall, leaving openings for the window bucks. It is exactly 24 feet from one corner of this wall to the other. So, we were able to use one 2x4 (cut from a 24’ 2x8) as the header at the top of the wall. This provides the plate for the 2x6 rafters to sit on.

After getting the corners of the wall plumb, we nailed on the header. Then, we plumbed each of the verticals and nailed them on. Next, we put on some rafters in order to tie the wall into the house.

We’ll continue where we left off on Friday. Hopefully, we finish the west wall on this part of the house and put up the vertical stringers on the front of the kitchen. Maybe we’ll even get other stuff done.