Today was my favorite day for one reason, I actually help with the design in a drastic way instead of just building.  a while ago myself, Britnee and a couple others pondered the idea of bringing the slats on the south loft all the way to the roof.  Well today we agreed to do just that — after disagreeing yesterday.  With more than half already built, I personally believe it makes the space look much more visually appealing, not to mention the equilibrium in the room

seems to be brought back.  But that will be enough about my personal beliefs, I am just happy to be a part of the DESIGN now.  Tomorrow will be a fun day because we are going to finish the slats and see how the final outcome will look.

Today Brittni and I really worked great together.  We finally accomplished finishing the railing, which was so painstaking because myself and her were designing it as we went.  Im very proud of what we did and I believe I can speak for Brittni in saying it looks quite cool.  Im excited to see what tomorrow bring in the other part of the loft.  We had a group decision in a strong design change today and the design stayed the same, im hoping to convince the nay-sayers otherwise tomorrow — time will tell!

Log 13-

Today was…. exhausting.  After leaving my house at 7am and getting back at 10:30 pm, I am VERY ready for sleep.  That aside, I really had fun today.  Brittney and I really did a lot with the loft railings and slat walls.  Her and I both designed a way to have supportive 2×6 railing posts that not only can support a grown person, but also doubles as a base for the slats to be finished nailed into.  I believe Bringing up the slat wall to the ceiling on the south side of the stairs really had a beautiful impact on the overall quality of the interior.  I am very much looking forward to continuing the slat details and burlap tomorrow.

Log 8-

Today was a good day for the most part, the begging of the day was great all the way through lunch. However my concerns started adding up when I saw the loft going up. I was quite worried about the connection of the southern corner after I was told we were just screwing a 2×8 into a post for a loading bearing corner. Needless to say I had to walk away from the interior and go talk with the shading crew. The day ended well though after the crew resolved the connection problem and all was well.

Log 7-

Today was another exhausting one.  Myself and about half of the others spent 12 + hours at the build — not to mention the drive there and back — trying to get everything prepped and ready.  I mainly worked on sheathing the peaks in the morning which took all the way until 1pm to finish.  After that I was tasked to start back up on interior walls and framing those up.  myself and the 2 girls worked the rest of the day on framing up 5 or 6 walls including the bathroom.  The cabin is really starting to come together and its getting more and more exciting to see it unfold.  I can only image what it would be like had I been in the design phase (which I wish I was).  I just cant help but think ever day we get done how fast time flies and how this just doesn’t seem like work.

Log 6 –

Today was a good day.  the best part of the day was the end result.  There was a huge transformation by the end of the day.   All of the interior sheathing got tacked minus the roof frames which requ

ire the double scaffolding.  I mostly was on top of the scaffolding today helping with the high sheathing and actually finished all we could.   The cabin is actually coming together now and it is very exciting.  cant wait to get there tomorrow!

Log 5 –  – today was all about the details.  In the morning we started out by constructing and tacking the ramp/porch structure to the west and east walls.  There were a few mishaps that we had to correct but we got it done quickly.  by the time we were wrapping up with that, myself and ty were tasked to take the burgandy bomber (my van) to go pick up the recycled wood from better homes and garbage!  and piling the wood from front to back and stacking the cedar on the racks of the van we were off!  Since I had 16 foot cedar strapped to a 13ish foot van, we took lake street all the way to Snelling instead of 94.  Not 20 minutes before we got back it started to tsunami and we had to stay inside for about 2 hours. Towards the end of the day we had fellow classmates Brittney and Lauren stop by on there way home from the cabin, needless to say they LOVED IT!  I finished off the day with sheathing part of the west wall and calling it a day.

Log 4 –

log 4

—   Today was the first day I really felt tired getting up, I guess those 12 hour days are getting to me and apparantly to the others from what I could gather.  The first 20-30 minutes of today were spent by me and Peter driving around the grounds and talking to several people to try to open the building.  After 30 minutes we were in.  We all started pretty fast framing up the north wall and by noon we had the entire thing almost done on the ground.  Nic and I spent the better part of the morning on the scaffolding capping the headers with a 2×12 getting it prepped for the roof.  Our cabin is becoming quite the intimmadating structure while on the headers!  The most exciting part about the day was when we stood up the north and rest of the east walls and finally made an enclosure! We finshed out at about 3 because we did not have the neccassary goods to move on and I was not complaining.

– day 4 of still having fun.

Log 3

– Today was the most exciting day by far.  at the beginning we were still working with the headers on the south wall and even had to take them down to adjust them.  I mostly worked on the south headers then the east wall towards the end of the day.  The exciting part was towards the end when all of the headers, the south stud wall fully completed and the west and east stud walls partially completed!  Did I mention it was another grueling 13 hour day?  If we continue at this pace I imagine us growing quite weary and groggy quite fast, we shall see!

side note: day 3 of not feeling like WORK

log 2

– The day started quite early at 5:45 with Lyle and I volunteering to come in early and finish the sanding.  It went really well esspecially because there were only two of us which help a lot.  the sanding got done right on time — however futile the efforts of our preciseness will be — and people started to show up.  The day got off to a slow but neccessary start.  As a matter of fact, the day stayed at a slow pace because we needed to make sure the columns were sqaure and true.  Its really starting to come togther esspecially now that the headers are going on!  It’s all starting to come together.  I left at 620 ending a 12 and a half hour day lyle was still there when I left!  The best part about this build is that it doesn’t even feel like work!

log 1

– Im sure I will remeber this day for a long time. After practicing architecture in theory and in models and small scale expirements, I am finally getting to actually build something. Contrary to popular opinion, i do not have much of any building experience. Nontheless today was awesome! we got all of the floor framing done minus the cap diaphram on the south and west wall. I got to do a little bit of everthing starting out with the hammer, moving on to the screw gun and finaishing off with the nail gun. the atmosphere in here is great, everyone wants to work and is mor than willing AND we are all friends making it that much more fun. The day ended early with the exception of myself, peter ty john lyle and melissa — im sure im missing a few — because all we had to do is sand with the sander.