Staining and Caulking Started

This week saw the arrival of Butch, the painter, to the site to start the long process of staining and sealing the house. After all the joints are caulked, the exterior logs will be stained with two coats of a Sikkens product, with a color called Dark Oak. The interior rafters, beams, and trim will be given two coats of another Sikkens product made for interior use, low VOCs and all that other good stuff. That work has started and you can see some of the pictures. The interior log walls will have two coats of a Permachink product to seal the wood and leave a satin finish- no stain so will have a nice contrast between the darker stain and the walls.

There is a lot of scaffolding needed to reach the high points in the house and a lot of climbing up and down! I'm going to help with this work for the next few weeks so anticipate some aches and pains.

You can see the caulking on the exterior dovetail joint after it was applied in one picture. Also notice the 2x12 planks that are set across the highest cross beams in one picture. These are to use as a "perch" reached by the scaffolding so stain can be applied to the highest points in the house. The planks will be moved along the cross ties down the length of the house.

It was quite a week on the weather front, we had some warm days but early in the week, it was quite cold in the early mornings, definitely used some more of the firewood that has been generated. I did get a bit more work completed on the paths but probably won't get a lot done in that area for a few weeks as I try to be useful and help with the staining work.

Exterior Work Continues

The main portion of the roof is now completed and nearly ready for shingles. The shed portion of the roof which covers the window side of the kitchen and the two porches on the east side of the house will have to be done first. This should happen in the next week or so if the weather cooperates. Here are some pictures of the back side of the roof in progress, same process and materials as detailed in the earlier post. The crew also covered the open side of the roof with some plastic sheeting to keep the rain out as the interior staining has started as well.

Most of the windows have been set as well, this was done very quickly and everything seemed to go in place very well- there was one window that had some scratches from shipping and this one is being held for inspection and repair. The picture of the end of the house shows the windows after the external trim has been added. This looks really nice- the trim is actually recessed in to a cutout around the window to minimize the gaps and should make for a very weather tight seal. The picture of the windows on the front of the house show the windows just after they were installed, no trim has been added yet. The inside pictures is from the kitchen looking up at the plastic sheeting that was put up this week.

Remember, you can click on the picture to get a larger view.

Visitor

While at the house site this week, happened to see this guy sitting in a tree on the side of the road as I was heading to Romney for supplies. Will have to investigate a bit to find out what type of hawk it is.

Everything Gets Used

I've mentioned the camp fires we've had in the cooler evenings and to start the day as well. All the scrap from the project has given us a pretty large supply of firewood- don't think we'll run out before it's too warm to have a fire!

We also received an update today from Allegheny Power that they should be out to pull the cable for the permanent electric service in the next 7-10 days. I know the construction team will be happy to be off of the 200 foot long extension cords and to see the improvement in the performance of the power tools.

Front Side of Roof Under Felt

There's been a lot of progress on the roof on the front side of the house. The roof for the porch was framed as part of getting ready to continue the roofing work. After some framing was added and supports to keep the foam from getting in to the soffit area, the rigid foam was added to the roof. These are 4x8' sheets of foam that are set in place and cut with a hot knife where needed. After the foam is placed, 2x4 purlins are placed on top of the foam and 11" screws are used to go through the purlin and foam in to the first layer of the roof that is already in place. Then a 1/2" sheet of OSB is added followed by roofing felt- all that remains to be done are the shingles once the back side of the house and the ridge vents are set in place. Here are some pictures as the work progressed.

In the close up shot of the foam sheeting being placed, to the far right, you can see the "can lights" that are in the roof that will light up the window wall end of the house. There is also a picture showing the lights from the ground. There are two lights on each side, hope they don't need to be changed very often.

Interior Cross Beams In Place

The Snowy River/Custom Contracting team took advantage of a rainy day on Monday to work under the cover of the weather tight roof. They put up all of the cross beams that tie to two sides of the heavy timber roof together. The beams are held in place with large nuts and bolts, you can see the bolts pretty well in the second picture.

Forest Path

Started cutting the first path through the woods. This one starts behind the house and runs along the road and then will loop down to the seasonal creek bed before heading back towards the house. It's going to take a while to get these done but it's enjoyable work. I estimate I did about 150 yards or so.

Since the land is so steep, I started the first path very carefully with the tractor to get a level spot. Once the tractor was on the level spot, I could start cutting the paths out of the side of the hill, backing along the path and using the small backhoe on my tractor to cut them out. We'll shred any small branches along the way to help level and define the path- will be interested to see how these hold up when we get the first big rains. Here are a couple of pictures of the results, the side of the hill doesn't look as steep in the pictures as it does when you're sitting on the tractor.