BA Column

Look, it's construction, but it's also dump runs.

 

Okay, back to the structure. Time to wrestle that column into place. A single fork on the forklift is crazy heavy.

Eliot popped the column up and over the wall to set it on the living room floor.

And then we lifted it up and placed it into the hole.

But our forklift's centerline wasn't directly over the target, so once the column was snuggled in its slot, didn't hang straight up and down.

I rode up the man lift to put a rope through the top, to pull the column towards vertical. The first 20 feet up were great: stable, sturdy, fast, much better than a ladder! After that, it was suddenly terrifying. What am I doing up this high!? Each puff of wind was terrifying.

I used a stick to get the rope through, but it didn't fall down far enough for Eliot to reach.

Eventually we got the rope through, and used it to right the column to almost plumb. We couldn't quite get all the way there, because the forklift was pulling against us. I guess we'll sort that out later.

We attached a diagonal brace that we had prepared ahead of time, made from a pair of 12-foot 2x6s; they reach about a quarter of the way up the column. That seemed like enough until we saw it attached, and we all shook our heads. We left the forklift there to hold the column, and drove into town to buy 20-foot boards.

On the way back, we saw one of our local wild roosters. Didn't know that was a thing.

The new brace reaches about a third of the way up. Much better. You can see both braces in the next photo:

Here's the plumb bob we were using to plumb the column. We spent a lot of time studying this little guy's swings.

Okay, so now we have to get the strap off the forklift. Eliot decided to try his hand at the man lift.

Yeah, it was scary. We were glad to be done (enough) with the column.



Toby got a chance to operate the forklift, lowering the boom after we were done with the column.

Next up, we cut the horizontal beams that join the column to the adjacent walls.

Eliot and the Liljas built our scaffoldings for installing the beams.

Yep, that's a tall column. You can see the horizontal beams installed in these pictures.

We went into town for dinner at El Caporal. My co-worker Rob and his wife Tong happened to be eating there after a day of hiking; they slid over to join us for dinner.

Sunday

Daniel and I tweaked the side walls to plumb and fastened the beams onto them.

Here Daniel is building up the end of the next wall. We had to hold its last few studs until we were ready to join the walls together.

Meanwhile Toby and Eliot were finishing up the first interior wall. This one is a load bearing shear wall that supports the balcony above.

Toby and I varnished the beams and the bottom of the BA Column with Man-O-War Spar Varnish (yarrr!) to protect the wood while the house is exposed to the weather. These beams will be visible, and we don't want them to grey from UV or split from moisture cycling.

Eliot and Dan finishing up the shear wall installation.

The exterior wall required a few more sheets of plywood before it was done; here Toby is helping Eliot place a piece, and Toby is nailing it in.

The shear wall is a W-6 shear wall, which means the plywood edges gets nailed every 6 inches. A lot of our lumber is marked "W-6" with a fat marker, as in the photo below. How did they know? And why would this 4x4 post care whether it got more nails or fewer? The solution: Our lumberyard is the sixth lumberyard on the warehouse's delivery route out of Wenatchee. :v)

And now they're building the next interior wall.

Dan really liked our leather toolbelt. He put all the tools in it. Now if we need something, we have to find Dan.

Eliot backed the truck up to put tools away, and almost put the truck away. Looks like a truck ad, though.

Dan drove the forklift down the hill to the storage unit.

Eliot helped Toby drive the forklift 900 feet down the driveway and park it for pickup.

Traffic was backed up on the freeway, which we took as an excuse to divert through forest roads. Slow, but beautiful.