progress report: its FRIDAY

yesterday was a day of small goals with very important results to prepare us for the weekend ahead.  björn and mario worked on headers and a few other SIP panels while glen readied the main section of the house for the second story to be rolled out today.

we also hoisted a huge interior structural wall which gave the great room all four walls.  i plan on doing a follow up post later this evening so that you can see just what we got done today and what the plan for the weekend is.

the south wall of the great room

björn and glen working on the top plates of the first floor SIP panels

our giant great room wall, this is a structural wall which will carry the roof panels 

raising the wall

i look like im lifting a lot- but really i had the light end 

making sure the wall is perfectly straight and level

a view of the house from across the river

products galore: SIPS built this house part III

today is the big day our SIP panels are arriving on a big ol truck at noon & with any luck that means we will have ourselves a house shaped structure in a matter of days! i will try to update every night so that you can follow our progress all week- it should be fun. you can learn about SIPs here.

you probably noticed that i have been slacking quite a bit in the last week but that is only because we have been so very busy that every day when i get back inside from being out in the cold for 8 hours i haven't really felt like breaking out the computer and writing.  however, i have so much to share with you and i don't want to leave anything out!

mario and björn layout out the warmboard

last week on thursday december 1st our warmboard arrived, as well as my best friend kara from boston!  while bjorn and mario worked on building the first floor - i picked up kara from the airport and then we helped to put insulation all along the perimeter of the floor joists, just another step to ensure a toasty warm crawl space!  at around 3pm the weather turned sour with cold, wet rainy snow.  kara and i were quick to retreat to the house while mario and björn continued working until well after dark- crazies!!

you can see our "blue board" insulation along the edges

friday morning, my birthday, we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow- björn and mario were back to work to finish up the first floor and kara and i hit the shops downtown.  it being my birthday durango decided to have noel night, of course.  all of the shops had great sales plus many had champagne or wine refreshments! it snowed lightly throughout the day and while not ideal for björn working it was a lovely birthday!  we finished the evening with an amazing meal at one of our favorite restaurants The Palace downtown.

saturday was looking like another crappy working day- plus the temperature had dropped significantly, so björn, kara and i decided to take a break and drive to chaco canyon in new mexico.  if you haven't been out west you have to come and if you do chaco canyon should be on your list of places to see.  it is a little known national park in northern new mexico and is home to the largest native american structure ever built.  chaco was once a center of native american culture in the west and while the actual use, size and inhabitants is always in debate it is an amazing place to see just for its beauty.  we reflected on the difficulties these people faced in building their own home- cutting down huge ponderosa pines more than 30 miles from chaco and hand carrying these huge logs to this location, and then hand laying the walls stone by stone, it really put our project into perspective!

pueblo bonito at chaco canyon

sunday was another fun day for kara and i, we went snowshoeing up north of durango to cut down our christmas tree.  we snowshoed into the forest about a mile and searched for that special "one".  most of the trees growing in the woods are a little charley brown-ish but we found a cute one and hauled it out and somehow got it on top of our land cruiser

coming home with our tree

kara and i after our snowshoeing adventure

monday kara and i decorated the tree while björn worked on cleaning up our site.  we also went and saw the muppet movie- and i cried the whole way through

simon the christmas tree - kara named him

a close up of simon's chili pepper and white lights

tuesday kara, björn, our friend tim and i went on another road trip.  the temperatures were going to be super duper cold so a trip to ojo caliente and santa fe was inorder.  first stop was ojo caliente which i spoke about here, it was more amazing than i had hoped.  the facilities were super classy and very relaxing.  all of the pools were great and the steam room was pretty awesome.  we spent about three hours relaxing in the many different pools, hoping to regenerate and reinvigorate ourselves for all of the work that was about to come.  we then drove the rest of the way to santa fe, what an amazing city, the main old square was just beautiful and was lit with traditional luminarios

santa fe square

adobe in santa fe with luminarios

wednesday we said good bye to kara and hello to a lot of work!  after dropping kara off at the airport we were back to alpine lumber to pick up some lumber to start preparing for the SIPS arrival.  

thursday morning we pulled on all of our warm clothes and started putting on the nailing plates for the SIPs.  these are 2 x 8 pieces of lumber which are applied to the perimeter of the first floor. the SIP panels will be nailed to these plates to secure them to the floor.

2 x 8 nailing plates for the SIPs

finished nailing plates

on friday we built our first interior wall!  in order to support the roof panels we have a few structural interior walls.  these include the two kitchen walls and the walls on either side of the stair well.  the kitchen walls we built out of 2 x8's just like the SIPs on order for all of the finish materials to match up perfectly.  we built the rest of the walls on saturday and sunday and now we are ready for the SIPs to arrive.

working on our first wall

we also got power!  woo hoo- the power lines will be
buried from this point into the house

LPEA installing a new transformer and our power meter pole

look at that our first wall!

and we built a few more

our interior structural walls

hoisting the wall to the first floor bedroom

working hard

me using our new bosch complex mitre saw with stand- so great!

enjoying our fine work

progress report: building the first floor part deux

yesterday björn worked with mario (one of our favorite go to guys) to get the floor joists all ready for our warmboard to arrive today.  the i-joists that make up the structure of the floor are pretty cool, they are a manufactured wood product and because of the design they are able to carry a large load over a long distance while using a lot less wood when compared to a traditional wood joist.

this i-joist system runs east-west on our foundation footprint, and while the joists could span the entire 35' of the main house or the 30' of the greatroom house, in order to make our first floor super sturdy and stable we built those cute little pony walls seen here.

björn & mario laid up our joists 16" on center across the foundation.  these were nailed into the sill plates and pony walls, after making sure they were straight and squared.  after they guys put up all of the joists, they added the rim board- which is another manufactured wood product.  i kind of view this as the wrapping for the i-joists, it simply frames in the joists and will allow everything to stack neatly on top of the floor system.

i-joists on their sides getting ready to trim to length

here is what our crawl space looks like now

björn and mario nailing in the joists

looking at the rim board

everything is so straight and beautiful

i am so thrilled that everything is perfectly straight and lined up- if you know me at all you know that i am a little crazed about straightness and symmetry and i am happy to say we are ready for the warmboard to arrive!

** side note:  i am hoping that björn will have something extra special to share tomorrow morning!  i can't tell you exactly what it is but it has something to do with reviewing what we have completed thus far and let me tell you its going to be pretty awesome!

progress report: building the first floor

as planned björn and i worked all day on thanksgiving and there was no shopping til we dropped on black friday, it was back to work for us.  however, we accomplished most of our list from last week which is really exciting! here is what we worked on:

we placed the sill plates on the stemwalls this was our final chance
to make sure our house is perfectly level

the foam creates a barrier so that no air can get into the foundation

björn tightening the bolts down on the sill plates

next björn used a hammerdrill to drill holes in the foundation floor to secure pony walls

i also used the hammerdrill but it proved to be a little jarring 

after screwing down the bottom plate we added the vertical boards at 24" on center
björn got to use his new hatachi nail gun

these pony walls will support the floor joists to ensure that we have a really solid feeling floor

me using the nail gun

all of our finished pony walls!