Just when you thought it was safe....

Just when you thought it was safe to leave your tools on the job site, the job gets delayed and you're stuck trying to work with your key tools locked in a trailer 36.6 miles away. Apparently I will never learn this lesson.....so frustrating.

Anyway. Last week I got to frame some new walls in an 1842 brick colonial in Dresden. All these old houses tell quite a story. Its mostly a story of neglect and mismanagement. This particular house had seen years and years of neglect culminating in a roof leak that led to a big insurance claim which provided the funds for a three room remodel where most of the water damage had taken place. This is the living room or parlor framed with new wall on the exterior, new ceiling joists supplementing the existing ones, and 1/2" of plywood strapping on the interior walls. I used the plywood strapping instead of framing new interior walls in order to simplify the trim detail around the existing doors.


Here we have a timber-frame and SIP addition to a home in Harpswell. My friend Andrew cut this frame over the last few weeks and we raised it in two days last week. Today we finished boarding the roof, and hopefully tomorrow or the next day we'll start install the the Structural Insulated Panel enclosure.


This area will become a study/office area. Its not really wide enough to be much else.


This area is going to be the new great room, I think.


The far portion of this will be the entry/mudroom.

Next week I start on a new project with Dyer Ridge Builders that may last into December......

Keeping busy

What use is being unemployed if you can't hang out, watch daytime TV and eat cheetos? I can't seem to catch a break with this 'unemployment'. We were back at it for a couple of days to put up this 24x36 high-posted cape. It took about a day to ferry the whole thing down there to Bristol, then another day with a crane to put 'er up. This morning we finished screwing down the purlins and put a couple of big tarps on the roof. We're short on tarp tatters, so we thought we'd put it up there ahead of some 60 mph winds (Hurricane Earl) and that would work nicely. Besides, I don't really get enough of being 27 feet up over a concrete slab.


After a quick lunch in my sweltering apartment, I thought, I haven't sweat enough today, so I'll go over the shed and work some more. I put in a little work bench. 38 and a quarter high, 30 inches deep and a little under 12 feet long. It should do nicely for some little projects for customers and our house project.



12 x 16 feet can feel quite small if there's too much stuff in it, but with some clear floor space, it feels just big enough. I'll have to stay organized.


Still not sweating enough, I decided to use the lumber loft for lumber, and I moved a couple of piles of pine boarding and some 2x8x 16' and 20' framing lumber up there to keep it out of the rain and out of sight.




We're watching the Hurricane tracks for Earl and hoping it doesn't get too wild here. Right now we're just in the 40 mph wind zone. If the seas are going to get too rowdy, we'll pull the sailboat ahead of it. Wouldn't want 'er to get swamped!

Progress!

Well, I got the roof on and a temporary door until I can build the sliding doors. Those roof overhangs look proportionally too big, but hey, its a shed and I gotta keep some wood dry.


Next, I re-glazed some old windows and screwed them in with some hinges so I can get a little airflow in the main level.


Finally, I got some hasps and locks on there so I can leave tools there without it being really easy for them to find new owners.

Roofing in Metal

So I have this prejudice against asphalt/fiberglass roofing. It goes like this: you can only use it as roofing once before you have to throw it away (by 'away' I mean 'into someone else's backyard', someone who can't afford to keep you from putting it there). Yes I know, some asphalt roofing gets recycled, but its a costly, messy process. Anyway, asphalt roofing is a mess no matter how you slice it, and its not even cheaper than metal. Metal has the advantage of being completely recyclable, it will outlast me, and when its finally not doing the job, my children can bring it to a scrap yard and get paid for it.

For my approximately 480 sq. ft. shed roof, I priced metal and asphalt side by side, and metal came out cheaper by almost 20%. The key with metal roofing is that you don't have to sheath the roof in plywood or boarding. You can simply strap it with 1x3's and screw it down. So, I ordered a bunch of 'burnished slate' colored metal roofing and went for it.


They even cut to length for me so I didn't have to buy more metal than I was going to use. (They won't do that for you at Home Depot or Lowes....)


This is a 'wear-gloves' job.


Predrilling all the sheets on the ground (and having square and plumb roof framing!) is the key to success, just make sure you drill the holes in the right spots.

More to come....