Week 4: Gable Walls and Roof Framing.

This trip did not start the way I expected...
I had some materials and tools to take with me to the Island, and I asked my sister for a ride to Horseshoe Bay. The problems started when I got the island and found that the car battery was completely dead! ;o(.

Since it was Sunday and it had been a rainy weekend, there was not a lot of people in the island, and I was unable to get anyone to help me get the car going (A big thank you to Scott and Anna who offered me to remove the car battery from their truck!). I was able to get the car going only after Katrina - who was in Vancouver - came to my rescue, bought a new battery and dropped it at the Water Taxi terminal for them to bring over!!!
By the time I finally made it to the site it was 6:00 PM so Sunday was a wasted day.

Since it had been raining for a a couple of days everything was wet and I decided not to set up the tent. Instead I moved into the container; I set my bed on top of the plywood pile, I found spending the evening in the container much more comfortable than the tent as I can walk around and sit more comfortably.

Monday was a good day. I spent most of the morning setting up scaffolding to work on the roof. I used the materials that will be used for the sleeping loft to put together a platform that sits on top of the walls and can be moved across the cabin as I frame the roof.

The idea is to build one of the gable walls and start framing the roof from that side, then slide the platform to the other end and build the second gable wall and finish frame the roof from that end. Once the roof has been framed, I'll take the platform apart and frame the loft.

I built the gable walls in two sections that I lifted into place. Once both sections had been attached, I framed the opening for the gable window. Since I wont be able to slide the platform back to this side once the roof is in place, I sheathed this will and cut the opening for the window.

The ridge board is a 1x8 and is made out of three pieces. Once the first section was attached to the top of the gable wall I could start cutting and installing the roof rafters. This is hard work and goes slow... By the end of Tuesday I had installed two pairs of common rafters and started working on the third pair. Here I have to frame an opening for the chimney which took some extra time.

On Wednesday I switched over to the other side and framed the second gable wall. Since I will be able to get to this area from the loft once it is framed, I did not sheathed this wall and started working on the rafters from that side.

I only had enough time to cut and install two rafters before it was time for cleaning up, packing and driving down to catch the water taxi.

Just In Case, I disconnected the battery to avoid having problems on my next trip...

Here are the pictures, Enjoy!!!

Week # 3 - Trip 2: Wall Framing.

This was a good trip: I did not run into any problems with the car battery, and made considerable progress on the framing! It's hard to believe that only three weeks ago the contatiner was moved to the site...

This has been my longest trip so far (5 days and 4 nights). Days are getting shorter, nights are getting cooler, and rainy days are more frequent. I'm hoping ot get as many dry days as possible in september to complete the roof. The goal that I set for this year is to finish the framing (excluding interior partitions) and complete the sheathing (walls and roof). Then I should be able to put a tarp on top of the roof, and work on all the finishes (door, windows, interior partitions, etc) in the spring.

I was able to complete the framing of all walls and raised most of them on my own. There was one wall that had two openings and a long header which made it really heavy, so I asked a neighbour for a hand raising it.

On Thursday I run out of framing nails, so Friday I spent the morning cutting and laying out the remaining walls which we nailed and raised on Saturday with Katrina after she brought more nails.

The next logical step would be to start framing the roof, but I dont have a ladder yet, so we started installing the wall sheathing.

I made some errors in the materials estimating stage (I did not transfer some materials from the estimating sheets to the shopping list), so I dont believe I will have enough 2x4 to frame the interior partitions. Hopefully I'll have enough for framing the gable walls!

Here are some pictures from this week, Enjoy!!!