After the Rain, the Roof

Finally.  

After the rain.  The roof.

Eric went with rafters instead of trusses because we didn't have any way to get prebuilt trusses up there, but rafters can be built in place.  

First Eric had to put in the ceiling beam for the second story and set in all the ceiling joists.  That makes the bottom of the roof triangle.

Then he had to build a ridge beam to make the top point of the roof triangle.   Then all the rafters had to be cut  and attached to the ridge beam and the joists/walls below [which is the ceiling of the new second story.]  

Did that even make any sense?

The pic is from late on the second day of roof building [the second weekend of the Big Building Phase].   

To make extra sure that the rafters would stay in place, he cut gussets [trapezoid shaped pieces] that he glued and  nailed in on each side of the roof [inside] where it joined the second story ceiling.   Sorry no pic.   The gussets support the bottom points of the triangle where the lower edge meets the edges of the triangle that go up. 

It took a lot of precise cutting and heavy lifting to make that roof.   It also took some nimble feet and careful walking so as not to slam one's head into the shorter attic area.  

See the red ladder on the left?   That's how we're getting up to the second floor right now. 

Yeah we're the cover story for White Trash Homes and Gardens.  I keep telling myself it could be worse.  We are, after all, living in a construction site.

You can sort of see the general shape of the new part.  The windows are not cut out yet up top.   The back shorter addition will be ripped off and replaced with something with an actual foundation under it, taller ceilings and a roof that doesn't sag. 

Also, we'll have a real stairway inside the house.   We are not planning on using the ladder forever and entering through the girls closet.   

In case you wondered.

Standing the Walls

I told you on Thanksgiving that it was only with the help of our friends and neighbors that we were able to stand the walls and roof.  Over the course of three weekends, ten of them came to help us.   Mark even brought his saw down for us [He's a cabinet maker] to make things go faster [It did!]. 

This is what it looked like the morning this phase began. They broke into teams and laid out the walls, nailed them together, put the decking on [plywood on the outside] and the supports and then they all stood them together. 

It was totally nerve wracking to watch.  

Each wall had to be scooted to the edge, but not allowed to fall over before it was nailed in place. 

Think about it.  It took at least 6 people to support every wall section while it was nailed in.  Except that one that Mark built which was twice as long as the others and which took every last person to help move, stand and get into place.  [He decided smaller was better after that.]

Mind.  Blown.

And they did it laughing the whole time.

You can see the exterior walls in the top pic and this one.  On the left you can see the diagonal supports that we held on to while the wall was scooted to the edge.  Once the wall was nailed in place, the supports were nailed in place too, to keep the walls from falling over before the ceiling and roof were put on.  

This is the pit where the stairway will eventually go.  You can see the old roof covered with tar paper inside the pit.  Eric cut the peak of the roof off, but left the rest to be taken out when we redo the downstairs.  

Right now we're using a ladder to get on top of the back addition roof and then walking up that roof into the new addition via the girls closet.

By the end of the second day, we had all of the exterior walls up and a lot of the interior walls up.   That's the closet area between the girls new bedrooms. 

After we got the walls in, the ceiling beams had to be set so the ceiling joists could be put in and the roof put up.

In the meantime it rained.   A lot. 

Putting on a New Second Floor

As you know, we've been doing some renovating.   We started by digging and pouring a whole new foundation.

Then we built some new walls around the old house.

Then it was time to put the second floor on top of the new walls.

Just how did we do that with the old roof in the way?, you ask.

That's a good question.   It took a lot of planning.   Very careful planning.   And very careful placement of support columns in strategic places inside the existing house.  Because the first thing we had to do was put in a beam in the new ceiling that goes the entire length of the house [north to south].   Then lay the joists east to west. 

Eric did that through the existing roof.  There was a lot of old roof in the way.  It had to be stripped and sawzalled out.   I love the sawzall.   In the pic above, you can see the rafters of the old roof sticking out of the floor of our new second story. 
 
Here's a view from the ground, up into the floor of the new second story.  

Yes, all of this meant that for weeks we had an open roof. 

No.  The weather did not cooperate.   More on that later.