Annual Swift Water Refresher

http://www.sandiego6.com/content/wheresruben/default.aspx?articleID=896161

         It turned into quite the media event this year.   Dan and I got there at 5:45---There was snow on the ground when I left home.  The ocean was very cold, too.  This reporter claimed 230 pounds.....

Sheer Energy

                      Getting the sheer panel up.  Also the porch beams are in and secure.  I wasn't happy with the wimpy little 'T' braces so there's steel pins driven through the beams into the columns.  Now they don't wiggle.

   There's actually an 'indoors' now.  Gotta do something about that draft, though.  This will be the living room.

                                                    Dining room/bay window

                So about sheer panel.   Before plywood and oriented strand board, what you'd do for diagonal stability was 'cut in' a 1"x4" board diagonally through the frame, then tip the frame up all square and ready to go.  Now, you can just frame it on the ground, tip it up, and worry about getting it squared up later.
                It's 'later' now.
                After all the walls for a particular floor are framed and attached to each other, you nail solid 'sheer panel' up.  They are 4'x8,9, or 10' panels.  Once nailed to a particular wall the frame becomes very stiff and won't budge.  So what I'm doing is starting in a corner, making sure the bottom edge of a panel is perfectly level then nailing it in.  Then compare the edge of the panel with the corner of the frame.  (this frame was off by 1 5/8")  Then the trick is making it right.  I have this two ton come-along to use.  For this wall (the biggest one) I was able to anchor to a post in the parking area and rick it straight, then finish nailing the sheer panel in place. 
               If I were building a single story on flat ground I might do the sheer on the ground, too, then stand the frame up.   (You can see a temporary diagonal brace in this pic.  It's only attached at the top and the bottom is resting freely on a block.  AS soon as the wall was straight that brace gets screwed in until the sheer panel can take over)

The First New Construction Project

   It's kind of an odd feeling to go through construction pics of the first new construction project.  Our dog has died.  The kids are much bigger.  The forest is thinner thanks to the Cedar fire, but recovering well.  My hair is thinner, and doesn't show any signs of recovering whatsoever.

   This first project was, in some ways, more difficult.  The home sits on bedrock.  You can see it to the lower left.  It's further from home.   Mostly, it was a first attempt.

                              These curved rafters were a trick....Well worth the effort, though.

                             The kids give the new tub a try.

                                     The Back Side

           This picture orients you to where the Cuyamaca properties are.  Our home, the current project, and the first project.  What's next?  I have my eye on the property immediately uphill from the current effort.  It's got a great view, and owning it would mean you could walk between properties without trespassing.  (The beach house couldn't fit in this frame.  It's just 45 miles to the South West)

What Song Best Sums Up Your Philosophy?

Row, row, row your boat
(Keep always moving.  YOUR boat, not anyone else's.)
Gently down the stream
(NOT frantically, or fighting the current)
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
(after all, attitude is everything)
(The best part-)
Life is but a dream.

Totally Beaming; Another Story

After encountering a few non-weather related delays, the second floor sub-flooring is in.  First it was the gremlin issue wreaking havoc on my tools one by one.  Yesterday the interruption was more welcomed-- an old friend stopped by to check progress.  Anyway, the first sheet of sub flooring is used to square up the entire house.  If you think of the upstairs as a square, even if all the sides of the square are the correct length, the corners aren't necessarily right angles.  So, you nail down one edge, force the corners of the house where they should be, then glue and nail the rest of the sheet down.  Also had to create some bridging in the floor joists anywhere there's an interior wall above.  Now there's an actual 'upstairs'.

The beam....6"x10" by 24'.  It will hold up the porch roof and also form the header for the bay window.  It had to go up, over, around, then on top of---probably a couple of other prepositions I've forgotten.  It's tied with the second biggest beam in the house (not counting the foundation beams which only had to be moved, not lifted)  You can see its sister jutting out there---it will go perpendicular, lapped at the cantilevered corner to the right of the last picture.  (The biggest beam is also the highest up single piece of lumber---the ridge pole.  6"x12"x24'.  It will rest on three wood columns, two of which are up already)

Oh---and that big beam that seems to be levitating against the rim joist there---that will support the bedroom window 'kick-out', where the floor actually pushes out by 6" to add dimension.  It will later be supported by the porch ceiling joists underneath, but it had to go in now for the subfloor.  The whole this before that problem...

Phase 1 Television Addict

Brains like television.  I think, overall, we'd be a happier society without it.

       Somebody told me about a show called 'Glee'.  I can only hope, by the way it was described, they were making it up.  Actually I fall somewhere between 'O' and '1'.

Go Ahead And Stair

 It really is going to be a small house.

 Safety required shoveling out the 1" thick ice sheet prior to any building

 Finished the stairs just before the sleet came back in

   Upstairs floor joists in.  To the right you can see the little cantilevered part that will be over the dining room and be a view spot.  You can also see the stairs.
   I think ANY progress this time of year is good.  Work's been busy, and on rare days off, the weather's been nasty.  Christmas eve I slipped---one foot went to the right of the beam the other to the left, and down I went.  Ouch.  Just bruises...It's really taking shape, and as soon as the roof's on I can work regardless of the weather.

Movin' On Up

 More evidence of global warming.  The rain fell on the plastic cover, and then froze solid.  Instead of waiting for it to dry it could just be broken and thrown off the side.

   The first story is all framed up now.  You can see the bay window to the left.  The first of 6 posts that will hold up the wrap-around porch roof is in.  The crossbeam is sandwiched between the two floors so it had to go in now, and the post needed to hold up the other end.

  In the early design stages I brought a stepladder over to figure out what design made best use of the view.  I want the bay to be a great place to just sit.
  Near as I can tell, there isn't anyone following this blog to pick up pointers on building their own place so I've kept lessons learned to a minimum.  I will say, angles are difficult.  Also no matter how carefully you try to order materials so it's delivered in an order that you can get to the boards you need and the order you need them, you're going to have to devote time to just moving material.  I had 6 days in a row off work; the first 5 were good weather.  4 days framing and the bay and last three lower walls were done.  I wanted to start putting in the upstairs floor joists but they are attached to 2" thick rim joists which were at the bottom of the wood pile.  Day 5 was spent moving wood up to the wood rack to pre-stage it for the next step.  Day 6 was a family day down the hill celebrating Mckenna's 17th birthday (though I was able to finish getting the lumber up just as it started to rain

It doesn't really look like much lumber in this picture but it's about 8 truckloads

Love

     I guess I used the term a bit loosely, without really knowing much about it.  I liked AnnaMarie and couldn't imagine anyone else with her.  Besides, my Dad thought the world of her.  I thought the whole mystique around 'love' was a bit overinflated to sell albums to pre-teen girls.  
     We had a lot of fun when we were first married.  When she told me she was pregnant I accepted it as the next stage.  I didn't really get it though.   I still followed selfish pursuits (motorcycles mostly) and took it all as it came.
     The day for the c-section arrived--AnnaMarie was all smiles.  I was sick as a dog.  We got to the hospital and they set up a cot for me...they took her away on a gurney and said they'd be back in 15 minutes to get me so I could cut the cord and stuff.
     15 minutes went by in my feverish delirium...Then 30.  Then 45.  I heard all the overhead pages for any surgeon and  anesthesiologist available to report to the 5th floor, but never made the connection.  After an hour went by, this fat nurse in full scrubs, blood stained---only her eyes showing---crashed into the room and just said "You better come now"...
    So I get into  all the surgical gear and into the suite to see my wife restrained to a table, doctors all around.  Her eyes are taped shut.  She's intubated, the anesthesiologist breathing for her.  A quick glance at the monitors let me know she was alive, at least.....They pulled McKenna from her, cut the cord, and said "You're a paramedic.  You take care of her"  
    OK...I'd delivered enough babies to do the simple stimulating, APGAR, swaddling, warming....All I could think of, though, is---is AnnaMarie OK?  What's going on here"
    What was going on was the spinal sedation, Duramorph, was a bad batch.  It didn't work and they had to get the baby out under emergency general anesthesia before it reached the baby.
    So I just took McKenna back to our room and held her.  About an hour later they wheeled AnnaMarie back in as she was just waking up.....She asked  "What happened?"  I tried to tell her, not sure what was comprehensible.  She smiled and said, in a kind of sleepy voice, "I had a little girl?"
   THAT's when I really fell in love.  About time---we'd been a family for an hour already.  That's when I started to get it.

Cold Weather Construction Company

FINALLY got a full day to work on the project.  With Holidays, work, out of state travel, and bad weather, it's been frustratingly slow going.  As soon as I got home in the morning got to work.  All my lumber had frozen into a single mass, sort of like a bowl of hard candy.  A few good whacks with a sledge would free it up.  My concrete washout had filled with rainwater and frozen solid---the kids were ice skating on it.  Wish I had gotten a picture of that..
So the fireplace frame is done, which holds the really really heavy parallam beam up which will support the upstairs...I dropped it at one point and the corner put a palm sized soft spot in the subfloor.  It will be easy to patch and it's going to be under a kitchen base cabinet anyway. 
Next, framed the wall that holds the sliding glass door facing the lake. With diagonal bracing, everything's more solid. 
Next was lifting the parallam header into place that forms the opening into the bay window seating area, and holds the big wall in place (in anticipation of Sunday's impending wind/snow storm)  Getting this beam in place was scary and I have splinters in my neck from shoulder-loading it.
So starting a 72 hour shift right now.  I'll be at work while this storm passes, then I get 6 days in a row, with predicted nice weather, to work on this. 

Thanksgiving Break

 The George Family met us in Penasquitos Ranch (roughly halfway between our homes) for lunch out, at Claimjumper.  We burned off our meal at a nearby park----Rob had packed up a volleyball kit.   It was fun and the weather couldn't have been better---it was the only nice day of the week.

   Day before Thanksgiving a co-worker that often bow hunts at our cabin gave us this wild turkey.  Cooking it fell on my 'honeydo' list before leaving for work Thanksgiving proper.  Two years in a row eating fresh, wild turkey.  I don't think we could go back to store-bought again.  This was delicious and my family, that rarely eats any meat, devoured it.