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....

News from the Country Estate 8-24-2010

Is it really almost the end of August? What happened to the time? December--soon it will be December and everything will be covered with snow and the plow will be hanging ready on the nose of the Dodge....But until then, there's still time to enjoy what has been a perfect summer (for weather).

Saturday and Sunday, KT was out of town, seeing her sister off to college (Univ of Minnesota), so I decided it was time to take my first solo daysail out in Casco Bay. I had plenty of wind, and got to practice a lot of things. There seems to be chaos on board when you're single-handing--you only have two hands and one free knee to manage, sheets and halyards, and of course the tiller. So it went ok, not the prettiest bunch of tacks and jibes, but I found my way back to the mooring field after 3 and a half hours. After practicing sailing up to lobster buoys several times, I sailed successfully up to the mooring, stalling the boat into the wind right on top of it. Then with a debonair and casual manner, I strolled up to the foredeck, with all the rigging flapping in the wind, and seized the pin-buoy and the mooring pennant. I felt pretty smug after that....

After church on Sunday, I had the time to go up to Cushing to the Historical Society which was holding a small art exhibition in their barn. My friend, David Cadbury, was showing some of his recent work. He uses Microsoft Paint as his medium and creates pixilated images of coastline and other subjects. I had to stand back 20 feet to get the real effect. Neat stuff.

Over the last few weeks, I had the time to build a custom bed frame for some seasonal resident clients of mine.
The corners are of a reused 8x8 Douglas Fir timber. The rails are simply spruce 2x6's mortised into the corners and pegged with red oak. The slats are white pine. The whole thing is sanded and finished in beeswax and citrus oil.



The client will be using a latex foam mattress on the bed, and so they requested that the surface be made up of slats so the mattress can breathe. We'll see how they find it to sleep upon. I am offering to build similar pieces for $800-1000 depending on the materials and dimensions.



Progress on the shed continues, with the back gable all studded out and one of the four gable overhangs framed. Today I'm going to frame the loft door in the front gable and then build the rest of the overhangs. Rake and eave trim will go up next, then the metal roofing on thursday. Hopefully I'll have the doors and windows going by early next week. Then a paint job.

KT is back safe from her travels, and I am glad to have her home.

Thats the news from the Country Estate for this week.

w

Late summer limbo

Well, well, another late summer limbo. I just got cut loose from my regular job because there's no work right now. Maybe a new project will come in the next couple weeks, but until then its limbo time for the bank account. How low will it go? In the mean time, we'll just eat the bounty that God gives us--this years blackberry harvest has been a bumper crop.


Then there's always the church potluck fellowship meal. We made a not-so-spicy chili.



Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves in the basement of Sheepscot Valley Community Church. Next time we have a potluck, we'll have it outside if the weather's nice.


Then, of course, there's always work to be done over at the Land of Goshen. I've had a shed platform framed up for several months now, but the time has come to frame the rest of it. Here's a progress shot from yesterday. Walls are framed and boarded now, all the rafters are up, and now I'm framing the gables and gable overhangs. I've got a whole bunch of corrugated metal roofing coming on Tuesday to get the roof on. Hopefully I'll get it all finished by the end of next week. Then I gotta figure out how to pay my lumberyard bill! Maybe I'll sell that 12" sliding chop saw you see there!!

Oh the places....

Another day at the office. This time, the office is in Berlin, Maryland, just west of Ocean City. Raising a 24x48' high-posted cape with a 10x24' kitchen addition.

Lifting the first bent (in this case Bent 5) off of the assembly area in the grass. We assembled on the grass to avoid messing around with the plumbing stubs sticking out of the slab.

Bent 4 coming to meet bent 5. Bent five is temporarily supported by two diagonal kickers to the mudsill and two come-a-longs to my truck, out of frame on the left.

John, master crane operator.

Bents 4 and 5 up and connected with lower connectors hung with their braces by come-a-longs from above. Bents 3, 2, and 1 assembled on the ground.

Bents 2,3,4, and 5 raised, connected and joisted. End of day 1.

Last bent (bent 1) raised and connected.

Flying in a daisy chain of purlins.

Shed Rafters and collars hung from main rafters, waiting for shed wall section.

All done. Homeowner (right) and I nailing on the traditional evergreen sprig on the gable.

Completed frame. Trailer packed. End of Day 2. Next stop: Ocean City beach.

Post/Girt/Connector Joinery

Queen Post, Collar, Rafter joinery seen thru the stair opening.

The Strip, Ocean City, MD: 8 miles of high-rises, t-shirt shops, bars and traffic.

George Washington Bridge. New York City.

After two days of work and two days of driving, I'm quite happy to be home in Maine where things aren't quite so crazy and the weather is perfect.

Launch!!

Launch day is always an adventure, even with a little boat like this Bristol 19/Corinthian Sloop. Even on a relatively simple boat like this one you've got to make sure she's seaworthy and you have all the gear to make sailing safe and enjoyable.

Applying a copper-based bottom paint. You definitely don't want to breathe these fumes much!

All hooked up, strapped down and ready to go.

Making ready in the Make Ready area of the Mere Point boat ramp.

Stepping the mast. Not a big deal on a little boat like this. There's a bit more 'heave-ho!' involved on our Rhodes as the mast is more than twice as heavy.

Making fast the forestay.

Launching, just before letting the trailer down the ramp on a long rope.

Out in the midst of Casco Bay by early afternoon. Had a nice little sail out from Mere Point, around Goose Island and back.

Paul, scrubbin the deck, only later to have to pull up the mooring ball and all its barnacle mess up on the foredeck. What a mess it was! Sometimes the mooring pendant or painter gets all wrapped around the chain when a boat isn't hooked on for a while.

So now the boat is in and we can all go sailing whenever. So come on out to visit and lets go for a float.

News from the Country Estate July 11, 2010

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

For the last two days we have had rain during the day, only to have the clouds break right around sunset. Yesterday we had a beautiful sunset on the west side and a full double rainbow on the east. Today's sunset was no less spectacular!

Its a hard life when your sunsets look like this.

Wags, profiled by the sunset.

Clouds, reflected in driveway puddle.

Early 1960's cedar lap-strake Old Town runabout.

Its been a hot few days here at the Country Estate. Temps and humidity in the 90's is about as bad as it ever gets round these parts. Unfortunately, I was in New Jersey all week putting up a horse barn, so I had the distinct pleasure of working in 105 degree heat and full sun for four days. I'd like to say it was bearable with plenty of water and sunscreen, but the pounding headaches really made it hard to work much more than 8 hours. We even started at 6am to beat the heat, but by 3pm we were pretty much all like frayed rope. In any case, the money was good and the frame went together with few hiccups and no joinery mistakes.

For a little fun, I put all three ducks in a big plastic tub to see how they'd like it. They had a good time splashing around until they couldn't figure out how to get out, then I had to use a little persuasion.

The one broody hen finally got up from the chicken house and roamed around the yard again. We were starting to think she had an egg obstruction or something, but I seen her scratching for food this afternoon. Lately they've all stopped laying due to the heat or the ducks encroaching on their space, I don't know which. I hope we can get them laying again soon, or else we'll have to buy eggs for the first time in well over a year.

Coming up we've got more summer, a couple weeks of work, then I go down to Maryland to put up another frame. This time it's a high posted cape with a lean-to shed on one side. We're still progressing on design for our home. Its a slow process, but we finally feel like we're getting somewhere.

Lastly, the motorcycle is in pieces still. :(

the first of the season

With the first backed up line of cars in Wiscasset, we know that the tourist season is here. Despite some of the anti- tourist sentiment (bumper stickers like: "if its called tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em" and "I'm NOT on YOUR vacation" for the locals), people round here know that its money from Mass, Connecticut, NY and elsewhere that makes the Maine monkey dance. Without tourist dollars ( and in that, its mainly the second home folks ), Maine's economy would resemble upstate NY-not much going on other than casinos and logging.

The weather this Memorial day weekend has not disappointed so far. Except for the farmers among us, who would prefer maybe 1 or 2 days of rain per week.

I've spent the last 3 weeks building furniture with my buddy Paul at his shop, working on the Bluebird (our 26' Rhodes Meridian/Seafarer), and enjoying the nice weather. Starting tomorrow, I'm back cutting timbers for a big horse barn going to New Jersey for a couple of months.

I just bought a 3o year old or so, Delta Unisaw table saw. Powered by a 5HP single-phase 220v motor, it will be all the table saw I will ever need. It was collecting dust in an old mill building in Biddeford and I offered a few hundred bucks and got it. Now, where to put the thing when I go pick it up?