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Group 2- Entry 7

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8-3-11

Day 7

Today’s been of the most interesting and rewarding day’s yet.

Firstly, I went up onto the high scaffolding and wore the harnesses. Yesterday Ty and Andrew wore then and went up to secure the gables to the top of our structure, now it was my turn. I strapped on, not an amazing feeling, then proceeded to climb to the top with Andrew to take measurements and install sheathing to the uppermost peaks of the indoor sheathing and John would cut the boards. The experience was slightly exciting but I kept my poise and stayed on task, no screwing around up there. Speaking of which, is there some secret, magical property that exists with O.S.B., screws and heights. In general, it’s sometimes hard to screw O.S.B., but up there, it seemed impossible!!!! But hey, John did some fine skill sawing and it looks pretty sweet.

Then it was time to go…and then we had the team meeting. At this meeting Nick made a deal with us, stay…and we get pizza. I was all over that deal. So we constructed a giant cross beam in two pieces and broke for pizza. Mmmmm, pizza. Then Nick and I, with the power of the scissor lift, brought up the beam pieces to the top and slid then into place. The Andrew and Ty secured them. At this time Mike finished up his mock up of the shading structure. We moved I into place and marveled at its awesomeness because we’re all architectural nerds.

Yours,

Nic Pietron

Group 2

Worth (aug 5)

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Today started with a stop at the donut shop, we were 15 min late so we had to get the goods. After some prep work and cruising materials around with the fork lift we began work. After some minor adjustments to the loft we sheathed it and had a second level. Some mock ups were made for the siding and I began to see just what it was my family had donated. The old face of the granary was showing through. I never thought that that old granary would ever become something other than a pile of splinters. I grew up with it my whole life, walking past everyday, but now I see it. It was hot, demanding, a lot of work to carefully dismantle the granary, but as I walked away today it was worth it.

Visitor (august 4)

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Adjusting still from day to day with different tasks, today began differently, slower it seemed. Time seemed to move fast, but the work moved slow. It may have been in anticipation of the several visits we received today. As we worked several people walked though asking about and investigating our work. It felt good to have other people excited about what we were doing, finally someone took notice. After visiting and saying our goodbyes, we pushed full force to finish putting up the TJI Joists. Also part of the loft went up today. It is such a change of space once that went up. We now have vastness and confined comfort under the same roof. I have to admit, today was the most challenging day as far as things going right, but in the end everything seemed to work out. I hope tomorrow is different though. I again sat in the window at the end of the day and looked up at the buildings ribs knowing that though today went slow, we could start to feel the space forming.

How to measure a day . . .

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How about measuring it in my own height?  That is an accurate measurement right or at least closeenough.

 

 

This was the beginning of a tolling task that would end up taking 4 days to complete all together; this task is none other then sanding the siding.  Earlier in the summer a fewpeople took down Ty’s granary, which then became the recycled lumber for parts of our structure mainly the siding.  Since, it was being reused from an older facility it needed a little but of a new shine, and that new shine would come from the hand sanding each piece with the belt sander.  While we were sanding it we even put the pieces into piled to help with over using certain sizes f the lumber.  The groups that Lyle and I came up with were small, medium, and large.  A few days earlier we inventoried all of it so we knew how long the longest pieces were and how short the smallest were.  Our small pieces went from 2’ – 4’, large 14’ to 16’, and for those we were not to sure about as long as the piece wastaller then I was it was a medium.  So apparently, a high is actually a good indicator ofanaccurate measurement.

 

 

 

 

  Pre sanding recycled lumber

   The sawdust that accumulated

 Some polished siding

 The siding on the structure 

 

 

 

Log 8

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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.

7-29-11 Group 3

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7/29/11

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Middle of construction day 2 with some columns we made.

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In the middle of making a column.

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We had trouble with anchoring the columns so we had to cut a hole in our sheathing to anchor the columns to the frame.

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End of construction day 2.

August 3rd- heavy

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Today started with some coffee, I could still feel exactly where the harness sat on my back as if I was still wearing it. We started in various sides of the house while others sheathed the interior and exterior. Chris is a wall building champ and took control of the interior walls while Paul and Mike trouble shot the shading structure, two creative minds, I’m glad they got to work on it today. After all the sheathing and cutting it was time to excavate the interior of all the scrap wood and various tools. The interior had finally been revealed for the first time excluding some walls and a stair structure but close enough my brain began to imagine with a better scale now. I never thought I would be sitting the outcome of so many models I imagined myself moving through. After a two trips to the lumber yard we had what we needed and the infamous beam was created. The harness hung staring back, I knew I had to get back in it. Andrew and I went skyward and with the help of some scissor lifts we were able to get the beam in place. It was a late day, I left at 9pm and began to cycle tomorrows tasks through my head on the ride home.

-ty

8-3-11 Group 1

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Today was a one of those days where a lot seemed to happen. The interior sheathing was complete by the first break. Dusty, Lyle and myself had a deadline of noon to have the exterior sheathing done on the East wall. We had to make a few interesting cuts but made our deadline with time to spare.

Later in the afternoon, Nick trained Lyle and I to use the scissor lift in order to apply sheathing Continue reading →

Log 7

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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.

Revival

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Today was a successful day. We arrived Chris was already on site getting tools ready and charging batteries. Our group worked on various task worked in many parts of the house. Chris worked on building the interior walls, while Paul and I revived the tired redwood. We used a planer to reveal and restore the wood. Throughout the storms and running the planer back in and out we kept at it. I rigged up a harness and put up the peaks with Andrew. The harness was very comforting at first but soon it became rather limiting with the amount of slack allowed. We spent most of the day in those harnesses and finally with my feet back on the ground it was time to clean up. For some reason being up in the harness took a lot out of me and I was very happy to hang the tangled piece of nylon up on the container wall.

-ty

Group 2-Day 6

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8-2-11

Day 7

The day started off with light showers and some gusts of wind then the sun came out and it became a nice day, why I’m I starting with a weather report? Well I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Today’s task was quite simple, John and I tackled the bottom layer of interior sheathing with O.S.B. I didn’t really know that much about O.S.B. except that it was a type of particle, glue lam, plywood-ish thing. But I guess that it is also a vapor barrier. So the glue and the material being pressure treated make it impervious to water? That make scenes, I guess. Then what happens to the barrier when you punch a screw into it? Does it still keep its vapor repealing attributes? I’ll believe that it does and that’s why it’s important to punch through it a minimal amount of times.

While sheathing the northeast corner, creating a sweet cut away detail (this detail is awesome and it showcases all of the wall’s inner workings), John was up on a latter making sure the angle was correct for the cut away when I hear from him, “Oh, our tent just did a flip!!!”, a sight that he saw through the upper window. To this comment I responded, “I’ll be right back,” and promptly ran out to gather up the saws, cords and the tent.

Then the sun came out and it became a nice day.

Out.

Nic Pietron

Group 2

Log 6

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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!

How to measure a day . . .

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No nails, or hours or scratches, or cuts of wood can today measured in but the hard work from everyone putting in more then enough time to make sure that everything is exactly correct to the 1/16th of an inch.

 

In the past couple of days things have been moving on fairly quickly, we are ahead of schedule and keep on cruising.  Thus far we have all four walls up and almost completelysheathed, just a few parts at the way top left to do.   The inside North and East walls are framed and the framing for the bathroom is complete as well.  The greatest achievement for the day would be place and securing the main top beam for the roof structure.  I started this morning placing sheathing on the West side wall with Brittany, we completed as much as we could do while on the scaffolding but the cabin is higher then both of us can reach even with added high.  Then we moved on to cutting the 2×8 for the loft floor.  After having a great lunch under a neat by tree we got right back to it, working on the interior framing for the East side wall, and finishing the day off with the framing for the bathroom.  The day has been one of the longest thus far but definitely did not feel like it since everyone was busy on the tasks that needed to get finished.  Now we can get a good start on the things that we need to do for tomorrow.

 

 Sheathing South exterior side  Sheathing North interior side  Sheathing North exterior side