I had priced timber frame kits and they were way out of my budget. A lot of rustic house plans have “fake” beams and timbers in them, although some are really timbers, they are not structural. I didn’t like that concept. If I’m gonna put a big hunk of wood in the house, it’s going to earn its keep.
After drawing up the plans and tweeking them for months, I finally threw away my eraser and took the plans to the sawmill. They cut the posts and beams as well as the board and batten siding from hemlock, and the natural edge siding for the gable ends out of pine. The sawmill I chose had recently had a very terrible fire and lost all their buildings. In a recent conversation with the owner of the sawmill (while I was waiting on the boards for the beehives to be brought up) he told me that he had added on to each building over the years so there was no stopping point for the fire. He also said that spiderwebs and cobwebs burned like gasoline.
Anyway, the logs were delivered and i stacked them and covered them until I was ready to use them.
Keeping lumber covered around here is a real chore. See that little gap just beyond the stack of lumber? The wind just blasts through there. The house was located away from this funnel, up against one of the mountains surrounding the valley where the farm lays.
To begin the construction I started in the farthest corner from the work area. It was also the tallest point from the ground–it’s amazing how a piece of ground can look relatively level but then when you put something as large as 32 x 40 on it one end is way up off the ground–the tallest edge of the house is about 4-1/2 feet tall! I always imagined a porch like on Bonanza where you could step off onto the ground anywhere–oh well, this ain’t the Ponderosa.
The first post was really a difficult chore. You see, I’d always been the helper so that meant there were four hands available; now there were only two. So, I used the tractor forks, nailed 2×4 supports on, and cussed a lot–it’s okay if you’re not offending anyone and the dogs really didn’t mind 🙂
After the first one the second one was just as hard….then they got easier…..or maybe not…..
At some point during the early construction, a guy who did masonry work for the company I worked for started coming around. He said he was my “building inspector”. I think he was just curious about a woman building a house. He loaned me lots of tools, gave me lots of advice, and showed me tricks on how to do things. One thing he loaned me that was invaluable for a very long time during the construction process was the wheels to go on the scaffolding–so much easier than dragging them around on my pretty red subfloor. He also would help plumb posts in the evenings so more sturdy braces could be put on what I constructed during the days.
Even though it was terribly hard work and I was sore and tired each evening, it was gratifying. My best friend came over every weekend and helped SO MUCH! She’s a city girl but I think she really enjoyed the challenge, PLUS she could brag to her sisters about what she was doing on her weekends!
This was an unorthodox position for her to be sanding but she was just knocking off one side we missed. I will say that there are more pictures of her helping, but she wanted to get a suntan so most of the pics are not webworthy of her in her bathing suit. We were a mutt and jeff team with me trying to avoid sunshine in overalls, hat, and long sleeves and her trying to get a suntan! Back to construction details……
My “building inspector” fabricated a log mover that fit on the forks of my tractor so I could set beams up on the scaffolding so they could be more easily set on top of the posts. Now that it’s all over I can say that I never dropped one and no one got hurt during the entire construction process. I remember during the construction of the first log house with my ex–we were working on the very top log, I think the last one, and it got away from us and hit the ground about 1 foot from one of our dogs–that was a heart failure! I kept the dogs away from where I was working just to avoid a similar situation. I had four dogs at one point during this project…..
That would be Cooper, Ralph, Buck, and Shaq–all gone to doggie heaven now, but my constant companions while they were here on earth. I just love dogs……
next up…..some construction details.
Wild Things Farm 