Another Week Down .... Many More to Go

Last week we got the tin roof on and since then we worked on finishing framing the windows in, widening the stair opening, meeting with an electrical contractor and cutting flooring on the saw mill. We are pushing to have the rough-in inspection done by the end of May so we can get our current abode on the market.

The walls were put up right after the frame raising in February but we did not frame the windows in at that time. Being first time home builders and first time timber framers we needed to see the frame up before placing all of the windows and door openings even though we thought we had them figured out on the plans and the foam core model. A great book that we have used in the past for laying out windows, doors and their relationship to the interior trim and builtins is a book by Robert Lang titled "Shop Drawings for Craftsman Interiors: Cabinets, Moldings & Built-Ins for Every Room in the Home " .

It has been great to look out the window openings and see the views. We have not been able to decide which view is best. This is a big difference to when we were living in Oak Park when our views included the neighbors dining room five feet from our house or the back alley.

Here is a view out of Joshua and Jacob's new bedroom.

Here is one of the views out of our bedroom with the pond in the distance.


Ed M. 's (Clearing the Building Site With Ed ) son who is an electrician stopped by this weekend. He is interested in helping us rough in the house. We had planned on doing most everything ourselves but have decided to get a little help. A few things he pointed out is that 1) we need to side the house before running the wiring so we don't shoot and nails throughh the wires and 2) that we will need to place horizontal blocking between the wall studs to nail the board and batten siding to. We though the 1/2 inch sheathing would be sufficient to hold the nails. I guess Coleman needed an extra few days of work to do.

When one is an owner/builder it is easy to focus on the easy and fun things without pushing on the harder less fun rate-limiting activities. Getting the solar kiln loaded with the next charge of wood is one such activity. We had about 1000 board feet of 4/4 southern yellow pine dried down but used it for the exposed roof decking.

The rough sawn ceiling looks great but it brought us back to square one on for the flooring front. Stephanie and I cut about 20% of the flooring for the house on Sunday from 2-3 logs.


We hope to have the flooring cut and loaded by next weekend. It should take a few months to dry down, especially with the warmer days ahead. Even in January we were hitting 120 degrees during the day.

On tap for this weekend:
1) closing in the rafters
2) cutting the remainder of the flooring
3) finishing up the overhang on the other side of the house
4) conduct an Easter Egg hunt around the building site