Big Progress, Gables & Heavy Timber Beams

There was great progress on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Dave, Doc, and Larry spent time setting the well pump and getting the water and electric lines laid and buried. The well is ready for the final electric hook ups and the pressure tank inside. You can see the utility panel in the basement with the hole that was drilled for the well connections to be brought inside. The panel above that hole is the automatic transfer switch for the whole house generator. A temporary connection is also being made in order to use the pump to fill the water tanks on the travel trailers on site- no more hauling water!

The gable logs for the window wall were completed on Monday in preparation for lifting the heavy timber roof beams in to place on Tuesday. One picture shows a view looking out through the window wall from what will be the second floor loft- should be a great way to see the distant mountains. The big mountain you see on the left is Romney Mountain, btw. There are also pictures of the beams and rafters being lifted and secured using a crane. Note that the beams ans rafters have been pre-stained before being installed. We're using a Sikkens product, color is Dark Oak for portions of the house inside (mainly beams and window trim) and we'll use the same color for the outside. The White Pine main log walls on the inside of the house will be protected but left their natural color. There is very little drywall inside the house on some interior walls, we haven't decided what color we'll paint this- another choice to make, lol.

There was an amazing amount of coordination and teamwork between the crane operator, the people on the ground getting the timbers ready to lift, and the crew on both ends of the beams as they were set in place and secured. Our thanks to Mike/Matt/Ryan/Douglas for all their efforts so far. We're really impressed by the professionalism all have showed so far during this project.

The final shot is looking from the road on the way to the property- you can seen the house sticking up through the pine trees.

Hopefully, Doug will get his truck fixed soon but weather forecast isn't that great over the next week or so but will keep everyone up to date.