retro posting: raising the first rib

     I have been asked countless times, " how id you get the big beams up." Here is is the how we did the first one. I climbed a tree, Hung a climbing harness in the tree, and ran a rope through a pulley on the harness. We took said rope and connected it to a truck a few hundred feet away via several redirecting pulleys. We connected the other end to the first timber rib.
     We lifted the rib to an angle so it would not just pull flat along the ground. Once we tipped the rib we placed blocks behind it so it would not slide.
All set. Rope attached to truck, Truck in gear, pulling forward. As we moved the truck forward the pine bent lower and lower. I thought the plan had failed. I parked the truck where it was and when I went to examine the situation I discovered that the rib now felt like a 2x4. It was essentially spring loaded by the bent tree. Allowing the spring of the tree to do the work we simply positioned the rib where we wanted it and lifted the holding blocks out of the way. We nailed some angled boards to the rib to keep it from tipping and the first rib was in place.

   The other ribs actually had to be lifted eight inches at a time due to the angle being incompatible with our new found spring loaded tree. This slow raising of the other ribs was definitely an exercise in trust and cooperation. Building this house has been one of the best forms of marriage counseling. It has taken communication to a whole new level.

second floor update

 The second floor is almost done. We have to a few windows to install and the stud work to support said windows. The roof is coming along nicely. We have all of the roof trusses up as of this past weekend. The pictures hearer show all but two trusses up. The photos also show the house before the North wall was built. More photos are to come. I often get distracted with building and forget to stop and take photos of the progress. We are using metal roofing and a radiant barrier on the roof. We nailed wide purlins in place to stabilize the trusses before placing the radiant barrier down. Once the radiant insulation was in place we nailed purlins on top of our wide purlins. These top purlins will allow us to screw the metal down while still maintaining an air space between the radiant insulation and the metal roof. This air gap is important in order for the radiant barrier to work properly, according to my reading.
The main floor is wrapped in tyvek. The windows are in and it is starting to feel like a real house. My next post will have the first photos of inside.

square thoughtage

The average American household is now over 2000 square feet. The average American individual has around 1000 square feet of personal living space. These statistics vary slightly depending on the source but hold reasonably close regardless. As the modern family has morphed and shrunk the homes in which we sleep, spend weekends, holidays, and special events has expanded. The expansion is something to the tune of doubling within one lifetime. This is an extreme reality of modern American life, we own larger homes have smaller families. Paradoxical? I think yes. 

There is a movement, a currently chic and trendy movement, toward small homes. Homes that are minimalistic in size. Homes that are even tiny. This movement is rooted in diverse beginnings, as diverse as the owners of such homes. Some build a tiny home because they want to create something unique. They want something that they themselves crafted and a tiny home is no so daunting as a two story colonial. Others buy tiny homes as a way to avoid debt. The smaller home carries a smaller price tag and allows the owner a freedom from debt. A smaller home with the smaller price tag afford these individuals the ability to fill their small space with quality over quantity. Still others, own tiny homes because the life they live are conducive to a small home. We sleep at home but we live in our cars. We cook breakfast at home but we eat lunch and diner in town. We work all day and spend the evening in the shops. Despite the regional and cultural differences across the county we spend less time at home today than ever before. It is time our house design reflect our culture and not that of our parents, or the aristocracy of past centuries. 

We are building a tiny home for all of these reasons. A tiny home is not limited by size. It is designed to evolve. It should be fluid as our lives are fluid. Our house will be 400 square feet. We will have outdoor living areas; covered porch areas, garden paths, rows of fruit trees. The design accounts for future additions. We may enclose a section of porch, converting a screened room to an extra bedroom if the need arises. If the need moves out it can always be converted back to a screen roof. It is fluid. We are accounting for desires such as creative work space. This may enlarge our house but not without reason, for thought and consideration for design. A tiny house is about creative use of space, multi purposing, quality over quantity. A tiny house is about purpose and freedom. It is not limited by size but empowered by it. We have chosen to build a tiny house.

Second floor

       This past week has proved to be productive. Partly due to the threat of impending rain and partly because we made a conscious effort to build on multiple days. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera for a daily snap shot. The photo to the left is our progress as of the end of the week.  The sub floor is done, save a small strip that will allow access to the crawl space. The second floor has half of the studs done. Yes, we are building the second floor with traditional framing as opposed to timber framing. Building the timber ribs was fun and interesting but there is no way we can safely raise ribs on a second floor. Not to mention we ran out of cured oak for the process. So, standard stud walls it is. We are using saw mill cut pine from the mill five miles away. 2x4x8s are 2.40 a board and that beats Lowes by a mile, not to mention it is locally sourced, cut and milled. Additionally, the wood from the mill is true cut as opposed to the "standard" lumber from the store that is labeled 2x4 but is really smaller.
      We were able to build a jig and finish half of our roof trusses this week. We lifted them into place with a reasonable amount of grunting and ladder climbing. The metal roofing and reflective bubble insulation was picked up this week and we will hopefully install it in the next couple days.
     Yesterday, amidst the rain, we burned four large piles of brush. Most of the brush was from clearing the site for the house. We also burned a large amount of brush from our recent clearing in the forest surrounding the house. The burning really helped to clean up the surrounding area and removing the downed brush from the forest will make room for our hazelnut planting this Fall.
    Below are several more pictures of the house in its current state, taken from different angles. The second to bottom photo is taken from the lower field and gives good perspective on how the house sits up on the hill.

site prep

       This is a retrospective photo. Here I am laying out the house site. We drover rebar into the ground at key points so as to allow us to visualize the size and shape of the house. This picture was taken mid July. We began foundation work shortly after this picture was taken.
      The house foundation now sits to about where I am kneeling. You can see the thick forrest in the background and the field to the South. We have since thinned the forest and trimmed the undergrowth to about seven foot. This Winter we will plant hazelnuts in the protection of that pine forest.
To the left you can see some of the foundation work in progress. We gathered mountain stone from near the house site and placed large rocks in a trench. Some of the rocks were excessively large , we laid these in the corners. in addition to the mountain rock we also took gravel from the old logging trail and filled the foundation with crushed stone in fill.
Following the rock and gravel we poured 4 inches of concrete base layer all around the perimeter. once this was set and cured we poured an additional cap of concrete over and around the first layer. The layering created a wide, firm and well established foundation on which we laid mortar and one corse of eight inch block.

Here is another shot of me working on the forms for the base layer of concrete. The photo shows the East side and the North side of the surrounding area. The East side drops off into the lower meadow and wetland and the North gives way to more dense woods. We cleared 3/4 of the East trees in order to create a healthy managed forest enviroment. We kept the maples, sassafras, a few interesting pine trees and sweet gums. The thinned forest will allow these trees to thrive and become stronger well established specimens. It also allows for more light in the house and a better view.