Howell Cabin

Let's start Wednesday off with some autumn color on Filbert Road. Jason has been building our driveway up to the county standards. Here he's grading the road by delicately scraping it with a 12" I-beam. I picked up a few missing bits from the hardware store, and then I got to work stapling screen over the blocking vents. Mike and Nick are working on installing the tapered gable rafter. After the construction crew went home, Mom wanted to try her hand at the 56-foot telehandler. I finished up my blocking job. The selfie is me standing on the top plate, 17' over the kitchen floor. Another 13' up to the ridge beam. Thinking I'm glad we decided to hire framers for the ridge & rafters.  

While I'm at work this week, our framers went to town. They put the ridge beam up on Friday. On Monday they prepared the site for installing the rafters. In the photo below, you can see our scaffolding set up to 18' high, set on the second floor, to hold a work plank at 27' off the floor. On Tuesday, I got the top photo and the one below. They'd put in all 21 common rafters on both sides! Wow, it's looking good. That's some serious progress. I visited on Monday to talk to Jason, the guy rebuilding the driveway. While I was there, I took a walk through the dark part of the forest, where there's a fungus party.

So I had to go to work in Boston this week. While I was gone, the framers finished the gable wall and stood it up. They sent me these pictures on Thursday. On Friday, they set the ridge beam. Woohoo! This was the part that scared me off. I asked by text whether they had caulked and glued on the flashing caps, which I can't make out in the photos. Mike's reply: "Come on John you hired the best" Okay. Carry on. :v) I'm driving up Monday to check out the progress.

After putting away tools with Eliot under the rising full moon, we got home at 11pm last night. I slept a few hours, and then got up at 5am to drive back up to the cabin to meet our framing crew for their first day. When I arrived, I watched the same full moon set. The autumn sunrise was lovely. https://photos.app.goo.gl/T1cmXpLaMLQsXwmNA I spent a lot of time talking with the crew about details. I also went into town to fix up mistakes from the big lumber order. Mike, the head carpenter, said our house was dead-on square (yay!) and only a quarter-inch too big. Later, he found a spot where the wall was out of plumb. They poked at it with the telehandler and hit it with a hammer until it was fixed. I don't really understand why that worked, given that there were fasteners in there, but hey, the wall's straight now. But I did get to help build a little. I chamfered the ends of the cantilevered beams and sanded and varnished them so they'll be ready to install la...

Back on August 28 we told you that the BA Column was scary. We finally found a framing contractor to come and build the tall bits for us. We spent this weekend preparing. On the way up, bits of snow in the pass! When we showed up Friday, the telehandler was there for the construction crew. Eliot used it to snag our personnel lift and place it back into the house. We needed to get all the tools out of the storage container so the driveway guy can move it out of his way. Using his new forest-road skills (see September 22), Eliot drove several truckfuls up the hill at the back of the property to the shed-let. Saturday Meanwhile, Jon worked on building parts for the stairs. Sunday Okay, we have the long set of stringers cut. We put in the landing boxes. Eliot checking my work. Installing the lower stringers. The final stairs will have 2x fir that matches the balcony. In the meantime, we cut up leftover materials to make steps that can get beat up ...