The ICF foundation does a great job of keeping the basement warm. December 5 brings electricity to the house via hook up of the main panel in the basement, with some outlets and on December 12 also hook up of the power supply to the pump for the well. Since the phone was also hooked up this week, technically we have power, phone, running water and septic now available (roughed in at least). Thanks to Danny McIver for getting us power and making a heater and blower available. It is now hooked up to keep the basement from freezing. Bob is here showing where he put temporary insulation in the subfloor and is now installing vapor barrier - this is to keep things snug so that we do not freeze and heave that newly poured basement floor.
The last of the shingling in November required beating back the snow on the roof and covering it in preparation for the next day's work.
The north side is shingled to up past the north gable and the north gable itself is shingled, including the top peak venting. The staging and anchor lines are in place for Don's crew to to the top section.
At mid September Angara has roof trusses in place. Holy moly that's a long way up there with all those openings. Maybe this 12-12 pitch roof idea was not such a good one (for snow shedding maybe but challenging to work on).
August 22 and reassembly is done. This includes Ronn's final lag bolting and adjustments for the ridgepole alignment, which he did on August 21 after the crew and crane had left. The house, Angara, is far more majestic and grand than I had planned (solid and practical was my objective). Somehow she took on a life of her own and with Ronn's artistic hand, she has emerged rather like a phoenix rising. Thank you to everyone who has helped so far.
Looking out over Lake Duborne before the crane brings us down. This is the end of reassembly on day three, just as sunset approaches. The view from the loft will not look out quite this far, so this is the time to savour the moment.
Here is a special arch shaped log to form the eyebrow for the south side porch roof. This proved to be challenging to incorporate into the roof but is a good idea to ensure that rain and snow are shed away from the door and so that snow does not accumulate there between the two south facing gables. This was Ronn's design concept and it really adds to the character of the house.
The column is carefully aligned for support for the king truss which will be set in place, centered above this column.
The king truss support column is flown in with "arms" intact. We all resisted the engineer's view that this column was required, but having to keep moving with the schedule we accepted the idea. In order to make it more palatable, Ronn selected a log with lots of character (the arms). This way we could all live with the requirement. Note from Catherine - the answer is NO, the arms will not be used to hang moose and deer carcasses in hunting season....
The eighth round is done and now we are starting to position summer beams and other floor beams for the loft.
Catherine having coffee on the porch, first time of many. This is how we started day two, another excellent weather day.
Pretty good progress for day one. We were able to get the seventh round in place to lock in the island walls between windows. A pretty full day considering we did not start until noon when the crane and logs arrived and were ready to go.
Ken's done unloading trucks for now and is working with Ronn on positioning logs. Ken is a very talented logbuilder and has a terrific ability to work out problems and calculations in his head, plus he's really good at working in high spots. Ken was also very patient about explaining the process when I badgered him with questions all day long.
Frank has to be the most talented crane operator that I've seen. When he says that you are as safe in his hands as being in your mother's arms - he's absolutely correct. Frank seems to know where you want a log positioned even before you know AND even if he is out of direct visual contact with you. Frank has other talents too which you'll see as the project continues.
Bob taking a break on the north side in what will be the kitchen window. Beautiful sunny day, we were blessed with clear weather for all three days of reassembly.
Ronn and Scott are positioning the east wall and you can see the grey foam on the curved joint at the bottom of the log in the air. The scribed groove at the bottom of each log is also packed with borated sheep's wool (harken's back to my sheep farming and hand spinning days in the 80's and 90's.
Here is Scott positioning logs on the first day. He was there for the two and a half days of site reassembly and he sure worked hard. Scott is a student who spent the summer doing quite a bit of work on the log building at Ronn's log yard. Great work Scott.
We continue to unload - here is the second Reghold truck. Note the detailed paint job on the tractor, this required attention on our part to brush our our long private lane to be sure it was not scratched.
Hug and smooch your log builder often to keep spirits up, resolve issues and maintain harmony. Make sure you don't catch your log builder off guard or this formula could backfire! Note that the white Stetson is an ANSI rated completely legitimate hard hat.
