cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Win! The last wall is halfway done now. It will probably be another 3-4 hours of work until I am completely done with framing the walls. I still have to do the section with the doorway, which is more work than sections of wall with no rough openings. Making headers for doors and windows is hard work, especially since I'm all out of 2x10 stock and I have to build them up out of smaller pieces. It means cutting a pair of 2x4s, a pair of 2x6s and a piece of plywood all turned into a big wood sandwich that is secured with construction adhesive and a great many nails. Onward to the sheathing this weekend. Bob said I can borrow his ladder for that. I hope he'll bring it over here soon. Otherwise I'll have to build a ladder, which is very doable given my stockpile of 2x4s. But building a *safe* ladder would take me at least 2 or 3 hours, which is time I should be spending on actual construction. You don't just want to face-nail the rungs to the sides. First of all, you need to cut down the sides from 2x4s to something that is actually of gripable dimensions. Run them through a table saw or something. Then the rungs need to be let into the rails rather than face-nailed. This means cutting and chiseling out little pockets in the rails for the rungs to sit in. This is all stuff that I can certainly get done. I just have better things to do with my time. Whenever I get through with the sheathing, I am going to have to take this roof question head-on. I'm pretty sure that it's going to be a gabled roof but I haven't really looked at the matter very closely. Of what pitch exactly? Do I have sufficient materials remaining with which to frame it? I dunno. I'll figure that out after the sheathing is on and the ceiling joists have been installed. Oh yeah, the ceiling joists. Huh. I hope I have enough 2x6s left for the rims and header joists. Since I under-ordered 2x10s, I've been scavenging 2x6s to use with scrap 2x4 in order to make headers. Do I need to use joist hangers for that? Probably. I didn't need them for the floor because those joists rest on top of the beams rather than running between them. Now I'm just musing through the keyboard. Sorry. Construction is ever so much fun. I am very psyched to start building the actual house. This is exactly what I've always wanted to do. I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old getting obsessed with the idea of scraping together enough money to buy one of those pre-fab sheds that they sold at the hardware store and setting it up as my own little lair in the backyard. I made a few half-hearted efforts at building something, but we never had building materials around and tools were scarce. My parents called in professionals to do everything. The only wood available to me was old pine plank shelving that I nabbed from the basement. It was when I was 17 that I first got glued to the idea of building my own actual house. The precise vision of what that house should look like has changed over the years but the basic idea of getting a piece of land and building all kinds of crazy shit on it remains. Hey, it just occurred to me that I was right about everything as a teenager and my parents were wrong. When I was 18, Trish and I announced our engagement (although we'd gotten the ring while I was still 17). We declared our plans to get married and find a big piece of land and build all manner of strange things on it. Naturally my parents rolled their eyes at this whole grand plan for happiness, wedding and all. Well, HA! 12 years later, we're still married and we have the big piece of land and we're building all sorts of things on it with our own hands. I win! 13:10 - 2008-03-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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