Addition Photo Gallery - Building the Connector
Now that the topsider portion has been erected, the more difficult task of connecting it to the house begins.
Mon, 15 Mar 04 - Tom came to look and plan. He will buy the supplies and start Wed.
Wed, 17 Mar 04 - Heard it was going to rain on Saturday - he doesn't want to start and then get rained out, so he'll start next week.
Fri, 19 Mar 04 - I got a job! Yea! Yea! I start Monday - now I can feel better about spending all this money without having a job since 24 Sep 03. Yea!
Sat, 20 Mar 04 - No rain during the day. Thr, Fri, and Sat were clear and dry...
Tue, 23 Mar 04 - Work on the connector floor begins with Tom and son guys.
Wed, 24 Mar 04 - Rain.
Thr, 25 Mar 04 - Work on the connector floor continues.
Fri, 26 Mar 04 - Rain forecast, but none comes.
Sat, 27 Mar 04 - Tom was going to come, but his wife gently remind him of their 37th wedding anniversary...
Sun, 28 May 04 - The wind was loosening up the tar paper, so a quick trip to restaple was in order. Also, pumped out the collected rain from the crawl space.
Mon, 29 Mar 04 - Framed in the spiral staircase. Given where the step is there are two options - we will got with the option to shorten the spiral stairs.
Thr, 01 Apr 04 - Finished framing in space around stairs. Beefed up the floor - added joist hangers and doubled up joists in heavy traffic areas!
Fri, 02 Apr 04 - Doubled up rim joists, installed sliding glass door, cleaned up outside jobsite and added more fill around the foundation with the bobcat.
Sat, 03 Apr 04 - Installed external trim. Became too windy (gusts to 45 mph), so work stopped early.
Mon, 05 Apr 04 - Worked on building the gable (right side of the pictures).
Tue, 06 Apr 04 - Work continues.
Wed, 07 Apr 04 - Work continues.
Thr, 08 Apr 04 - Work continues.
Fri, 09 Apr 04 - Work continues.
Sat, 10 Apr 04 - Gable closed in. Two skylights openings are framed in. Next is to shingle the topsider and start working on the connector again.
Mon, 13 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Tue, 14 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Wed, 15 Apr 04 - Shingle quest. Menards lies about the shingles "Yes we checked and we have 162 bundles shrink wrapped for you". Four hours wasted going to two other stores.
Thr, 16 Apr 04 - Did something.
Fri, 17 Apr 04 - Trim overhang on gable. Add cedar fascia and drip edge.
Sat, 18 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Mon, 20 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Tue, 21 Apr 04 - Install three skylights.
Wed, 22 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Thr, 23 Apr 04 - Frame in gable window. Work on connector deck.
Fri, 24 Apr 04 - Lay plywood on connector deck.
Sat, 25 Apr 04 - Shingle gable and part of topsider. Finish last bit of plywood on deck. Add additional support to connector floor.
Mon, 26 Apr 04 - Nothing.
Tue, 27 Apr 04 - Build west connector wall.
Wed, 28 Apr 04 - Build east connector wall. Add sheathing.
Thr, 29 Apr 04 - Add more sheathing. Strengthen top plates.
Fri, 30 Apr 04 - Nothing. Rain.
Sat, 01 May 04 - Nothing. Tom's B-day
Mon, 03 May 04 - Ben the Hillbilly Carpenter shows up - connector ridge and framed part of east connector roof.
Tue, 04 May 04 - Short day - One roof support and gable ridge board.
Wed, 05 May 04 - Ben showed up again. Finished framing in east connector roof. Framed in connector gable valleys.
Thr, 06 May 04 - Ben again. Finished framing in gable and part of north connector.
Fri, 07 May 04 - Ben again. Finished framing in rest of roof. Ready for sheathing.
Sat, 08 May 04 - Ben and Doodle showed up. Rain nearly derailed things, but huge progress was made - the roof was sheathed. With the roof covered, one can really get a good feel for the space insidede - this is going to be great!
Mon, 10 May 04 - Framed in gable window.
Tue, 11 May 04 - Covered connector roof with ice/water shield and tar paper.
Wed, 12 May 04 - Rain.
Thr, 13 May 04 - Rain.
Fri, 14 May 04 - Nothing.
Sat, 15 May 04 - Nothing.
Mon, 17 May 04 - Finished north side of the connector gable (roof return plus cedar). Heavy rain at night.
Tue, 18 May 04 - Nothing.
Wed, 19 May 04 - West topsider gable installed. Northwest portion of connector roofed. East/back of connector fasica installed, corner of roof tied in to the house.
Thr, 20 May 04 - The rest of the original house will be roofed, as the roof is already worn out, plus this way it will match. Prep work on old roof above family room.
Fri, 21 May 04 - Rain.
Sat, 22 May 04 - Nothing.
Mon, 24 May 04 - Stripped roof above family roof, and resheathed, and covered with water/ice shield.
Tue, 25 May 04 - Staged material for tearoff of north side of house (plywood was delaminating, very soft).
Wed, 26 May 04 - Rest of connector and north family room roof shingled.
Thr, 27 May 04 - First part of north house roof stripped and resheathed.
Fri, 28 May 04 - Rest of north roof resheathed, roof return on right of connect gable finished, and south side of house reshingled.
Sat, 29 May 04 - Arrived to finish shingling, but rain began, so battened down the roof and called it a day.
Mon, 31 May 04 - Memorial Day. Rain.
Tue, 01 Jun 04 - Morning rain.
Wed, 02 Jun 04 - The roof is finished! Old roof cut back in connector. Final roof bracing completed.
Sat, 12 Jun 04 - Half of the dirt pile is now gone.
Sat, 19 Jun 04 - Rest of the dirt pile is gone.
Mon, 28 Jun 04 - First gable window installed.
Thr, 01 Jul 04 - Discovered the rest of the windows don't fit. They are smaller by 1" than what we ordered. Will be re-ordered for free, but it will take an additional three weeks - bleah. Added sheathing and siding instead.
Fri, 02 Jul 04 - Add more sheathing. Move and install sliding glass doors (yea!). Add tyvek.
Wed, 07 Jul 04 - Add siding to connector - cut short due to rain.
Thr, 08 Jul 04 - CHANGE ORDER. Upon further review, we decided our one and only change order will be increasing the window side on the connector. Start work on enlarging...
Fri, 09 Jul 04 - Reframing complete.
Sat, 10 Jul 04 - Old siding removed (the borders fall differently now, so we need to adjust), new siding started.
Mon, 12 Jul 04 - Rest of siding done. More trim. Finished transition point between new and old house under the eaves.
Fri, 16 Jul 04 - Rest of trim done.
Sat, 17 Jul 04 - Remove two trees. Both crowns are dead - one is leaning toward the addition. Although we don't have to remove them now, in 3-4 years they would be rotted enough to start dropping large logs. Might as well removethem before they become a problem.
Sun, 18 Jul 04 - Bonfire to burn part of the debris.
Tom, our contractor is gone for a while. In the meantime, we do substantial cleanup and have a bonfires on Sat, Aug 1st and Mon, Aug 9th to burn the majority of the tree debris.
Mon, 09 Aug 04 - Cut down remaining trunks.
Sat, 14 Aug 04 - Log splitter dropped off. I'll be workingon this a couple hours a day to split up two cords of wood. All hail the logsplitter - doing this by hand would be sub-optimal :-)
Mon, 16 Aug 04 - Stumps cut down beneath the ground, and area rough graded.
Thr, 19 Aug 04 - Connector gable windows are installed.
Fri, 20 Aug 04 - Work on lake gable windows. Discover that what was shipped was the two connector gable windows and one lake gable window, instead of one connector gable window and two lake gable windows. Arrgghhh! Reorder and hope there is enough work (back of connector T-111 and eaves) to keep Tom busy until they arrive.
Wed, 25 Aug 04 - Trim out the right gable window and install.
Mon, 30 Aug 04 - Trim out exterior of lake gable window. Add T-111 to back of connector.
Tue, 31 Aug 04 - Prep the eaves of the connector. Topsider has shipped the last window.
Thr, 02 Sep 04 - Last of siding and trim of connector. Shipping company has window but won't be able to deliver it until Friday or Tuesday. Anita drives there and beats it out of them.
Fri, 03 Sep 04 - Finish soffit on back side of connector. Move constrution material from driveway. Move playset towers out and rough level site. Install last window. With the last window installed, we are closed in and can consider the connector (and topsider shell) complete.
This task is done. On to installing the utilities.
Well
, we thought this task was done, but the inspectors didn't think so. They want the ridge resting on a big beam. *Sigh* This is going to set us back.
Anyway, after much time passes, the beam was ordered and delivered. And sat in the front yard for a month. Contractors are all busy, and my permit extension is running out, so time for extreme measures - Anita and I will engineer a solution and get the beam in place - with a little help from our friends :-)
Sat, 26 Nov 05 - Well, I need to support one end of the beam on a load bearing wall. Which is in the attic. Very unpleasant, as the roof is truss-based, thus there is even less room to manoever. Given that I'm going to spend a lot of time getting the beam supported properly, I need to build a path from the access hole all the way to when the beam will be supported - about a 30 foot run. There is a little triangle of access - 5 feet wide by 4 feet high. So I build a path using the 8' T1-11 scraps. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. Reminds me a lot of the Great Escape tunnel - I even fashioned a sled to push myself along.
Sun, 27 Nov 05 - Finally finished the attic flooring. I now start carefully cutting out a beam pocket. The task is a pain, because the beam will rest on the old garage roof and poke into the house roof, which is 18" higher, plus the beam comes in at an acute angle. The trick to the craft a hole, without cutting any supports. Interesting - when I cut though, I can feel a pretty impressive breeze of air (from the heated cathedral ceiling into the vented attic)... Enough for tonight.
But before I retire, I build a 4' faux beam out of laminated foam, glued with great stuff. You see, I need to make a whole bunch of complex acute cuts on the end of beam. It would be impossible to guess and correctly cut the real beam, plus since the real beam weighs 400+lbs, it would be impractical to lift, scribe, cut, and repeat. Also, given the beam costs a lot, I don't want to end up cutting it thrice and it still being too short.
Mon, 28 Nov 05 - The faux beam is complete. Now to use it as a template to determine how to cut the end. Upon showing it to Anita, she remarked we could have made a 40' long beam and used it instead of a real beam - just put a faux finish on it - Doh! It would have been infinitely easier :-)
Tue, 29 Nov 05 - Yow! I can do drywall - pretty well, in fact. But I've done enough of it so its marginal utility of fun is pretty close to zero. I got my first quote back on drywalling the addition - $8500! Now, I'm not one to second guess a quote - it is 2700sqft of angles, but at $8500, I'm suddenly finding drywalling a lot more appealing.
Wed, 30 Nov 05 - Tonight I was trying to round up some strong backs/weak minds to help me lift and place the beam on Sunday. My friends are smart - no Jedi mind tricks here - how much does that beam weigh? I guessed 400, 450, maybe 500lbs. There was concern it could weigh considerably more. At home, I looked up the specs. 13.1lbs/ft x 28feet = 367lbs. Still not light, but much more doable.
Sat, 03 Dec 05 - Prep time. I sliced a nice 28 foot chunk, but not after I measured four different times and had Anita check my work. A couple of neighbors came over, and we lugged the two beams inside. A good thing we did it, as the beams were damp and frozen. This way can can dry out overnight. Built and installed my T braces. Tomorrow I still need to sculpt my beams, a post, mount an overhead winch to help lift the beam, and build another T brace to hold the beam in place while I make the final cuts.
Sun, 04 Dec 05 - Actually, last night I got the T braces built and in place. The morning started out with site cleanup and continued work drying the beams. I have a kerosene torpedo heater which works wonderfully. The trick not to overheat a partcular area. Let it warm up for 5 minutes, then move to the next section. Anita sanded the beam, after which we both started making the end cuts on the beam. Then, Teri showed up, followed shortly by Kris. Time to get the show on the road.
First, Kris and I installed the electric winch on the roof. This will make it a lot easier when we need to lift the other side of the beam, plus also double as safety line.
Next, I start cutting away the support posts on the old roof which holds up the new connector roof. This is the money cut. If I did my homework, this should be very boring. Absolutely no load was on it. On to the next one - same thing - no load. Third one, again, no load. Although I strongly suspected it, more proof that the beam will not be carrying much load if any - perhaps if we got a foot of snow up top, but even then, I'm not so sure.
Next we walk the end of the beam up on the ladder and rest it on the roof. At this point, Jeff shows up. Being an off-road Jeep nut, he has the coolest collections of tow ropes, cable guides, and straps. A quick consultation from a winch master, and some borrowed goodies, we soon start raising the beam.
Last modified: 05 Dec 05
Addition Photo Gallery - Building the Connector / Dale Sulak
