Wall Frames

- Wall frames are done and raised. This raising was accomplished by my wife and I in the dark, and it very nearly ended in disaster. Mission accomplished, though. I have the bay wall partially framed; I need to pick up a couple of components from Lowes tomorrow to finish. The loft beams are in place, though not attached yet. Once all the framing is up and securely fastened to the floor frame I will sheath the walls and start framing the roof. I need to find a good stopping place where the structure will be adequately protected for the winter when I will not be working on it. Not that it gets freezing cold here in Georgia, but just so everything is somewhat closed up and protected. P.S. The trip to North Carolina was awesome and we came back motivated to do some building. Also the rice crispy treats at Grandma's house kicked butt. It was a good week.

Saturday Morning Framing

Subfloor is done… Now we're starting the framing. We're doing some traveling over leave, but I wanted to get some of the wall framing done before we go. So here is the fore wall; I might get one of the sidewalls done before we take off. We'll see. Key take away from this part is that angle clips (those little metal braces you can screw into 90 and 45 degree framing) are the key to success with this. I'm a little too much of a do'er (as opposed to thinker) to be able to pull off awesome hammer and nail framing…It's mostly busted thumbs and cracked wood. So I'm embracing the end result of 300 years of industrialization: those little metal clips that make it much easier and straighter to frame than just hammering it.

Friday Night Insulating

Insulation is cut and installed.

Side view.

Used spray foam insulator to seal the edges and cracks.

6 mil poly vapor barrier over the whole thing. Now it's ready for the subfloor.

Foundation Done!

The foundation struts are done…all supports are 4.5" x 7.5". They are nailed and screwed together, the base strut is bolted to the frame, and the finished foundation is bolted through the frame in 8 places on both ends with 3/8" galvanized carriage bolts. Drilling the frame took forever, but I think the structural benefits will be worth it. Additionally, the outside foundation struts are bolted to the side lip in 4 places. The floor frame is assembled, and aluminum flashing installed on the underside. Next I will be attaching the floor frame to the foundation struts. It will be lag bolted throughout, as well as bolted all the way through with carriage bolts in 4 places. Also, the frame will be secured periodically to the foundation with hurricane clips. Then, it will be time to insulate and lay the floor. On a side note, measure the head space in your vehicle very carefully if you're going to be using it to move rigid insulation panels. I failed to take into account the slope of the Yukon's walls, and ended up spending 30 minutes in the Home Depot parking lot wrestling all the insulation panels into the vehicle. Plenty of folks got a show and no doubt wondered what kind of idiot I was.

Weekend progress #1

The rails are cut off the trailer and I am constructing the floor framing this weekend. I've adjusted my foundation plans a little bit due to the excessive amount of time and work it would take to angle-grind the entire metal lip off all the way around the trailer. So instead I will be stripping off the unnecessary wood planking and lag-bolting 4x4 beams along the long axis of the trailer. My floor framing will be bolted to this foundation. I'm probably going to over-engineer this thing to the max, but better to have too much anchoring and securing than not enough. In these pictures I have placed the floor framing approximately where they will be so I can template how I will array the 4x4 beams to bolt to the trailer frame. Another advantage of doing it this way is I will be able to bolt the beams vertically and horizontally into the side lip, just adding an extra measure of stability and integrity.

Trailer Is Here

Got the trailer today and here it is. It is a Big Tex 70PI-X tandem axle trailer. It's got brakes on both axles, and they are both rated for 3500 lbs. It is 83" wide by 18' long. The next step will be to stockpile all my building material and then I will have to cut off the side rails to install the subfloor/foundation. But first I have to finish stuccoing my other building project, which is a sandbag playhouse. I was supposed to be done with it by now, but somehow I got behind… I have a feeling I will have to be working on two building projects simultaneously in the next two weeks. Oh well. It's doable.

Examples

Here's a couple more pictures for an idea of the end-state. We will be modifying our loft a little bit over the doorway to extend it out somewhat for added sleeping space. I should be able to pick up the trailer on Friday, so then the building can commence!