Spring forward

When the weather turns beautiful,  I'll be inside at last, it seems! 

Well, the weather forecast was terrible,  day after day,  but the actual weather gave us 4 decent days of work.  The temps were not ideal,  but we were finishing a ceiling, not fine furniture, after all.                                                                            

So we muddled through and got the beams and the planks for the ceiling oiled up.  Even had some sun, as seen here!

Next thing was to get the beams all shaped the way they need to be to meet their plate (seat, kind of)  

Then also the other end needed to be carefully notched and drilled so that it will hang on a nifty concealed hangar that gets pinned in..... all in the interest of a nice looking exposed beam ceiling.  Here are some pics of that end  (that's the hanger lying on top.  It slides into that groove and then three pins go through the wood and right into those 3 matching holes... we hoped: 

And there aren't just three of these..... there are 11,  so it took a bit of time, even after the experimentation with templates and jigs was over. 

In this one case,  the ions of prep worked out and the beams were fairly easy to put up.  So we got them up on Friday,  along with the first few boards.   THis first shot shows the side that has that hidden hanger,  doing its job.

And here's from the top.

With high hopes for a dry interior next week I sign off!  

Working on the very last piece of roof....

Let's see.  This past week was filled with a lot that doesn't lend itself to pictures.  

The roof over the kitchen and dining area is the last to go on.  THis is because that area will sport exposed beams and exposed boards overhead.   All the boards that will form the ceiling and also the beams need to sanded and oiled before they get installed overhead.  

ABove is the pile of boards,  below the pile of beams. 

The main problem has been that the cold came back and the oiling process just isn't made to happen in the temps we're having.  Instead of vegetable oil consistency I have sticky honey.

On Friday I called off the efforts to oil,  hoping for better weather this coming week.  Instead,  I worked on my own putting a little mini-rooflet on the dining room window seat area (seen here from the side with Jennifer about to ascend).

THe forcast isnt' for anything better coming up, so I think we'll put some plastic over the windows and see if we can warm the space just enough to  get the oil flowing.  Then we'll probably have to work under the temp tarp that you see here, to get things up... 

In the meantime we've been working on lots of choices and orders that need to be placed as you can see here -- Jennifer's conemplating metal siding colors for the upper portion of the house that will be corrugated.

And here's the closest thing to sunshine that we had on Saturday.... and I mean that in everyway that you  might imagine I would =; -)

Fiddling on the......

If I were a..... So, blogging's been slow, but I been working nonetheless. In fact, the weather was so glorious this week that Jennifer was inspired to take some pictures two mornings before she left for work. By that time the stress of hanging on the roof had gotten me punchy, I guess. Looking back on my last entry I see that I was pretty lazy and unclear about where we left off. So here's a shot that represents work we did in the prior week. By Tuesday of this week we had the first layer of plywood up (on the second half of the second floor roof) and were working on the endless details of the sides and bottom of the roof sandwich. We tarped it all up each night to keep things a little less slick in the am: Later in the week we were finally able to focus on the top layer of the sandwich: Besides a great view, the workspace boasted excellent cell phone coverage, even if it wasn't always convenient to pick up! By Friday the cap was looking complete:

and I was feeling VERY ready for some work on lower ground.

Too sloggy to blog!

It's been a hard coupla weeks. A few days were too cold to work on the roof. One day there was an am snow coat that lasted only a few hours, but not conducive to roof climbing. When we do work it's hard on me. A lot of up and down and up and down again.... But it's coming along and I hope that with the improving weather I'll be in the mood to document some more. We planted eight fruit trees weekend before this one. It was Jennifer's birthday gulag! We didn't take photos because we were so covered in mud we didn't dare touch the camera. The light here in the winter comes and gos fast but it changes the layers of view by the moment. As I've said before, I'm not a photographer who can convey it, but I keep trying! And here's my favorite end of the day look at the ridge, with a piece of roof thrown in for you! Will try to be on schedule and more informative next weekend! Ciao

Back at it.

Here's what the water fountain at the United Gates at Laguardia Airport looked like. You gotta love NYC! A better reason to love NYC: Ben warming up for his junior varsity game. He scored 10 points and landed 10 rebounds that day! Got back and got back at it. Second floor roof rafters. Heavy and hard on the lower back for an old lady who's been taking it easy, but as you can see, the weather complied. You can also see that Sebastian scratch coated (smoothed a cement coating on) parts of the upper walls, while I was away, so things kept moving a bit. Exhausting to one and all at the mobile home!

Gettin' away for a bit

Quick entry as we're in prep mode to get outa town for a bit over a week.  It's hard for me to leave when I'm in this push push push mode,  but it's a good time for a much needed break.  

The weather has continued to serve us well,  with only a little nip in the mornings and temps in the 40s and often as high as low 50s in the day.  This whole week we've had no rain,  only the everpresent mist and fog that breaks for perhaps an hour of sunshine each afternoon. 

The roof work is coming along.  I'm only about two days ahead of the work right now, in terms of getting things figured out on the computer ahead of daytime needs.  Oh Well.  

These two pics show as much as is visible about this week's roof progress.  THere's a lot of work in there that you can't see .   The North "wing" now has its insulation sandwich and is covered in tar paper that's repelling the mist "as we speak" (which we don't, in the era of the blog,  and sometimes that's hard because whoever you are, you hear a lot more from me than I do from you!).  

Last thing on Friday we got the dreaded (by me) ridge beam up into the air.  See it up there at the tippy top?  If the weather permits when I return we can get moving on second floor's roof.  It will be the hardest as it runs at twice the pitch of the north and south wings.  On the other hand,  the beams that go on the South wing -- in the foreground here -- will all remain exposed on the interior,  so when we get there I'l l be saying that's the hardest.... and so it goes! 

Have a good coupla weeks.  Back in a flash! 

As planned,  we poured the concrete into the last remaining walls -- the East and West gables-- last week.  This was a pretty mellow pour, as they go.  There was the issue of getting up high,  but otherwise it was a small amount  and relatively easy configuration.  Thus I was able to take a photo when things were wrapping up.  In this shot Sebastian is doing my job -- holding the hose.  It's actually remarkably heavy and bruising... though not when it's only for an hour with little need to move around much.  

 

It's hard to convey the feel and texture of the whole pour thing.  It's stressful and messy.  I have loved what working with these blocks has made possible for me,  but I am very happy to be moving on,  and for the moment, up.  Happy enough to show my lighter side..... well maybe not literally.. while Jennifer was snapping some pictures during Saturday inspection: 

There were some good workdays last week,  in that it stayed warm.  The mist fell,  but the wet is not such a problem when your fingers aren't also getting very cold.   So,  we got a start on the roof rafters on the North side:

Let's be frank. Now I'm in entirely over my head =; -)  

This next phase involves doing all new things that I have much less guidance on than the whole block business....  Just the books...   So,  I started on this side because I thought it the least obvious place to make my mistakes....  

Do you see any yet?

Have I mentioned that it's endlessly beautiful here?

I think I have.  Cousin Irene wrote and asked me to document the nature more.   So much of it is about light and views that I'm just no good at capturing.  Some of the photographers in the family need to come and work on that!  

So I'll use poor photos and my words:  One thing is that there is this light green moss that covers almost all the decidous trees.  Thus the oaks look like this, when they are without leaves:  

Yesterday afternoon the sky turned streaky pink at sunset -- with the moon rising just over the mountain.  I tried to take some photos of that too,  with very limited success: 

Starting a new year -- getting to the point(s)

Notwithstanding all my efforts to reach the peak last year,  it took until the first of the new year to get to the points at the gable ends of the house.

 

  (That's the moon at the top of this pic,  not a smudge)

We had an open house (apt title, we thought, for our topless house) on Jan 1 and enjoyed visits from a number of our local friends.  The weather and the endless mud and wet has been a bit demoralizing, so it  was a great boost for us to get so much positive reinforcement.   It rained the whole time.... thus no inclination to take pictures, but yesterday was nice weather so we snapped quite a few. 

By that day we had poured concrete (term of art for this is "grout") into the second floor walls up to the point where the gables start.  So, as you can see in this pic,  the walls up to the level just above the windows are solid now -- thus I am able to stand on them as here: Upon reflection, my original plan of pouring the whole second floow at once seemed too risky -- too high to go and too difficult to pour the tall gables end walls full from the sloped tops.  

 It is really quite high.  (14' 4" to be exact) It took stacking our scaffolding one atop the other to do the work at the end. 

The climb may not seem so bad -- in fact it can even be fun-- but remember that every block you see in these pictures was carried up the stairs and then up onto a scaffold (or two)  before it could be placed in its spot.  

Doesn't she just cry out for some roof?  I hope not to spend a lot of time admiring the view from the peak of the gable on the east,  but it was worth documenting: