The weekends we spend working on our new home seem to fly by, and despite the hard work we put in, I always find myself wanting to stay and do more. I have found more energy and renewal of spirit from our time spent there than I think I ever will at the daily grind of city life.
This past weekend was no exception. Our goal was to tidy up some details prior to tackling the second story and ceiling framing. Arriving the afternoon of Friday, we knocked out some of the smaller projects. My lovely wife worked at installing the rest of the dowels that would conceal the screws holding our loft floor together, and I made some modifications to my miter saw setup, so it would be more accurate and useful. As it was previously mounted on a moveable pedestal, I mounted it to the wall, and anchored a fence to the counter next to it, so that a stop block could be clamped in place for repeated, identical cuts. Not wanting to waste the box that it had been originally mounted on, I cut that in half and mounted some shelves inside it for organization. All in all, I was quite pleased with the new setup.
The next morning, I found myself awake before the sun was up, and unable to resume my slumber. My mind was hard at work, and refused to turn off. I was working through all the steps ahead of me, over and over again, until I felt the spark of inspiration that I was on the correct path.
One thing I have learned is that GOD speaks to us all the time. The difficulty is that it is in ways that we are not prone to recognize. Inspiration is one of many I’ve learned to listen to, and the more you pay attention, the more you are rewarded.
Once we got to work, the day’s task was tying up some loose ends from the previous work, and framing the two remaining downstairs walls. Aside from the occasional hiccup, everything fell into place nicely. The only thing we are holding off on framing is the front wall, until the roll up door can be removed.
Sunday I found myself in the same state, awake before dawn, and thinking about how to achieve the certain look we want from our main ceiling. All at once, the framing was laid out for me, clear as day. I had been mulling over that aspect for weeks now, and kept running into dead ends about the feasibility of each idea I previously had. Now I knew for certain exactly how to proceed, and that it would indeed work. As always, I am forever humbled by how He has chosen to bless us.
After some breakfast, and helping Mom with some minor issues, we spent the rest of Sunday cleaning up from the weekend’s work, organizing the workshop, and building a new set of deck boards for the scaffold, so that we can safely work on the upstairs and ceiling.
Heading back to our temporary city home was bittersweet, but the knowledge that we will be back soon for more leaves us very excited for the future.
A quick update on our progress, we just completed two solid days of work over Easter weekend to install the loft flooring and frame in the stairwell. It was a big task and we are extremely grateful for the helping hands of Chris (my father in law). Everything went rather smoothly and I haven’t come up with any anecdotes which make for a compelling story this time, so I thought it would be interesting to present a timeline of images, which dramatically illustrates how far we have come. It is nice to reflect on our accomplishments, occasional pitfalls, and lessons learned. We are truly grateful for the holiday, spending time with family & friends, and sharing good food!
We are very delighted that big progress is starting to happen! Coming up one weekend to finish the final preparations before the insulators arrive, we ended up scrapping the idea of pressure washing the inside, due to the amount of time it would take to fully dry out the slab again.
We did, however, wrap the steel loft frame in stretch wrap to protect it from overspray, since the steel will be a visible architectural detail for the kitchen ceiling.
Amusingly, it looked a little like Halloween decorations when we were done. All said though, it turned out to be an elegantly simple and effective way to protect the painted surface. I threw as many panels of plywood I had on top of the steel as decking for the insulators to work from, and it was decided to leave the scaffolding set up for their use.
The other main objective for the weekend was to receive delivery of the framing lumber. As luck would have it, the only option for delivery was Saturday, and the weather forecast was less than promising. I got the call that the driver was on route and gave him directions to the rear entrance to the property. The front paved drive is not navigable by large trucks, partly due to canopy overhang, but mostly because of some very tight turns. The rear entrance is not that much better, being a bumpy limestone road, but at least it was a straight shot with plenty of overhead clearance.
When I inquired about the size of the truck I knew I needed to quickly figure out an alternate solution. I had previously navigated a 26 foot box truck down the rear road but only barely made the turn onto our property. I realized a 36 foot semi with rear forklift would never make it. I quickly hooked up 1 of 2 small flatbed trailers, neither of which were in outstanding condition, and told the driver we would meet him on the county road at the entrance of the dirt lane. Of course, as soon as he pulled up, the skies opened up with torrential rain.
After a few jokes about the fantastic weather, the driver had the first pallet loaded up and said he would wait for me to come back with a second empty trailer. I headed back toward the farm, and halfway back the trailer hit a bump, jumped off the hitch, and landed nose down in the dirt. Still raining, I got out and looked incredulously at the situation…
“Really?” I said to myself as my brain scrambled to come up with a solution. Getting back into the truck, I headed trailerless back to the farm. I pulled up in front of the main garage and jumped out to grab a large floor jack. My wife came out curious about what was happening, and I wasn’t able to fully articulate the details, so she hopped in the truck to go with me.
I raced back to the fallen trailer, and quickly backed the truck into position. Using the floor jack I was able to lift the tongue of the trailer just enough to get it hooked back up.
Now with both of us soaking wet, we headed for the farm, much slower this time. Somehow the trailer jumped again, but this time landed on the step of the bumper. I reattached it again, and continued on, as slow as was humanly possible. Finally arriving at the farm, and with extremely poor visibility, we managed to back the trailer into the cover of the steel building.
Quickly, I hooked up the second trailer and we headed back to the county road, with no sign of the rain easing up. I apologized to the driver for the delay and under the circumstances he was quite gracious. After loading the second pallet, I signed for the delivery, and we headed back towards the farm.
As we rolled across the bumpy limestone road, super slow to avoid a repeat of the first trip, my patience was noticeably wearing thin. My wife reminded me that the Lord likes to teach us lessons in ways that we often don’t find easy. Somehow, through the heavy rain and setbacks, we had accomplished our goal by persevering and not giving up. She reminded me that we would laugh about this soon, and despite my soaking clothes and frazzled nerves, I had to agree.
We managed to get the second trailer secured under cover and at that point, nothing else could be done. Thankfully we headed inside to dry off, change clothes, and warm up. Eventually the rain subsided and we went out to assess what should happen next. We ended up removing the plastic wrap from the two pallets to prevent trapping moisture, and set fans around to help dry them out.
Returning the next day, under sunnier weather and renewed spirits, we found the lumber to be fairly dry. So I pulled the one trailer out from the steel building and we decided, after some discussion, that it would be better to rewrap the pallets and leave them under cover, instead of hand restacking the lumber inside of the workshop.
Fortunately, I had more than enough of the stretch wrap left over to completely wrap both bundles of lumber, and so we left them, awaiting our return in one week to start carpentry.
As the week went by, I received an update from my mother. The insulators had come, and were able to successfully finish the whole structure in one day. That was a relief, hearing that they hadn’t encountered any issues hampering their progress.
So we headed back up to pull a three day weekend, and had the good fortune to be joined by my in laws. This was a huge blessing as my father in law (Chris) has 30 years experience as a contractor, and I knew that would greatly increase the amount of work we would be able to accomplish.
We arrived early Friday and were pleased with the results of the spray foam. As the day progressed I could definitely feel big difference in the amount of heat buildup.
After a quick huddle with Chris, we got to work. Since the flooring lumber was stacked on top of some of the framing lumber, we had to move it. We decided if we were going to re-stack it, we may as well prep it at the same time, squaring the edges with the table saw and miter cutting one end. 40 boards later and we had it prepped and stacked inside the building where we could work around it.
Next we got started on actual building. We framed up some of the downstairs walls, and then I finished framing the downstairs pantry and bath, and Chris started building the staircase. I left this in his capable hands as he has a lot of expertise with stairs. I was very grateful for the assistance, as I would have taken twice the time figuring out the process and making the odd mistake or two along the way!
While we were working hard, my wife and her mother applied some sealant to the underside of the upstairs flooring. We figured that would effectively seal the wood where it contacts the steel beams, and make the final finish easier to apply. Ingeniously, Chris had the ideas of using the garden gate as a drying rack, as they only had enough sawhorse space to work on 7 pieces at a time.
By the end of the day we had a fully framed out area under the loft and a very handsome set of stairs.
Sunday was a short day, I spent a little time with Chris figuring out the mechanics of the floor install, and our next steps forward. As an experiment, we put together a small corner section of the floor and tested the fit. Satisfied with our progress, and facing a long drive back, we called it a day, and agreed to get back together Easter weekend to finish out the floor.
It is always a little sad to leave the farm and head back to city life, but we are very encouraged by the progress we are making. If all goes well, we hope to ring in the new year in our future home!
As always, thanks for reading, stay tuned, and GOD bless everyone!!
The last weekend in January we came up to the farm for a three day weekend in order to start tidying up some checklist items that need to be completed before things can move forward.
First was the need to finish emptying the steel building in preparation for spray foam insulation and the wood framing. This last bit of clean up had to be slower and more methodical, so as not to render the workshop unusable. After a little rearranging of outside storage areas, we were able to find at least a temporary home for everything.
A little more time was spent organizing tools in the workshop, along with removing the last set of old drawerless cabinets and a built-in sink, in order to free up some valuable floor space.
Even though it may be a while before I redesign the workshop into its final layout, it’s as close to functional as it needs to be to carry us through the rest of the build out for now.
I am continually impressed though, about the various relics we have recovered in the cleanup/ reorganization process. Quite a few unique items, with a bit of character, which will be of great use in the new design.
Saturday, while we were having lunch, my mom gave me an heirloom that my uncle had found while cleaning up his own house. Apparently, as boys, he and my father liked to get into various kinds of mischief, including rummaging around abandoned houses. On one such outing, they had found an old army bayonet with a broken tip. According to my uncle, my father had reground the tip, and made a leather sheath for it, complete with his initials stamped in.
I was surprised and touched to have a bit of my dad’s history come to life. It was also personally meaningful, considering my recent fascination with leathercraft.
In the weeks leading up to our next working weekend, things seem to be picking up. Estimating and sourcing all the materials, planning the things that will be contracted out, and making sure everything happens in the correct timeline has turned into what feels like a full time job! This is a stark contrast from previous trips where we accomplished a lot with minimal planning, but it is reassuring as this is a sign that things are moving forward at a good pace.
Now it’s the end of February and we are back up for another three days and a long list of details to try and complete.
Friday we rolled in just in time to meet with an electrician for estimating the cost of dropping a new service line from the transformer. As much as both of us would like to be completely off grid, it’s simply not feasible yet.
From there we hooked up the trailer and heading into town to retrieve some 2×2 16 ga. square tubing, similar to what the steel shell is framed with. This is what I will use to frame out the rough openings for the doors and windows we are adding.
We were fortunate enough to acquire three free doors to use in our build from my day job. They were going to be discarded at the last inventory and the Good Lord put me in the right place at the right time to take them home.
We had spent some time searching for windows, so that we could nail down our rough opening measurements. However we weren’t thrilled with the cost of new windows, and finding deals on used windows was not fruitful. I started researching how to build wooden windows and found the process well within my carpentry skill set, which immediately freed us from being constrained to buying first and then framing. Now we can just build out our desired rough openings and make custom windows to fit. As always, I am humbled by the gifts and talents that GOD has blessed me with, and hope to use them all for his glory.
So Saturday I set to work, carefully measuring, and doing the math for jambs and sills to figure up the dimensions for our door openings. Once I was satisfied it was back to cutting and welding in the pieces. Getting all the rough openings completed ended up taking most of the day, and I had hoped to get more accomplished than that, but I’ve learned to trust in the process, knowing everything will happen in it’s own time.
Sunday, I took on removing the existing electric conduit and fixtures, which will come in handy when it’s time to rewire the workshop.
It took a little while to get the upper level lighting down but everything happened very smoothly otherwise.
The final order of business for Sunday was to try and resurrect the old pressure washer that had been sitting idle for far too long.
With some fresh gas and a new spark plug, the old beast roared to life, and in no time we gave my wife’s Jeep a quick wash to make sure it was running well. This was a relief as it saves us a bit from not having to either rent or buy a new one!
With all that we come back in a few weeks to pressure wash, wrap the steel loft framing in stretch wrap to keep it from being fouled by foam insulation overspray, and layer the loft floor with plywood for the insulators to stand on. Then in short order, the building will be insulated and my father in law will be up for a weekend of carpentry. We are both very excited about the next steps and look forward to sharing the progress!
We came up this weekend for the purpose of getting the workshop organized and into functional order. This will be essential once the carpentry phase of construction begins. Anyone who works with tools can appreciate an organized work area, as time spent searching for something is time lost.
The stash of reclaimed lumber, in groups of similar cut sizes, became rather useful. A utility shelf to store my father’s older tools, most of which are in need of maintenance and repair, was the first and easiest project to throw together.
With that set of stuff organized and out of the way, I set up my miter saw and leveled up a set of cabinet drawers to match the deck height of the saw. All the other cabinets have been decked with proper fitted tops, creating ample work space and freeing up the middle of the room.
Next was installing some cleats to properly store the collection of clamps, which ended up being larger than I had anticipated. Suffice to say, if I need to clamp large or multiple projects simultaneously, I think we are covered.
Happily, we took most of Sunday off to spend time with family who came to see the progress we had made, and wish us well on this journey. Good food and fellowship always nourish the soul.
Monday we stayed to put in one more day of work. I learned that there was another section of scaffolding at our neighbors house that had actually been on loan from my father. I had already been wondering how we were going to acquire a second section for the work ahead. So, it was a quick trip over to retrieve that and now we have a two-story stack of rolling scaffold, which is exactly what we will need when doing the ceiling work. Once again, the Lord has provided for us, above and beyond all expectation.
My wife took on touching up paint on the steel work where all the welds are, and I tried to finish emptying the boat house so that the next trip up we could pressure wash the interior. We got close but had to wrap up around 6pm and make the two hour trip back to our working lives. I will have to figure out exactly how and where to organize what is left, rather than just squeeze it all into the workshop, rendering that space unusable. I would have liked to finish everything we had set out to accomplish, but I am content with our progress. Even though there is seemingly a lot of work to be done, everything is falling into place faster than expected. Especially considering we have basically put in a handful of weekends to get this far, and accomplished everything with minimal help. I give full credit and praise to God for always guiding my hands toward success.
The next phase of construction will be the interior wood framing, with doors and windows cut in. Those things need to happen prior to having the building shot with spray foam insulation. From there we can proceed with electric, plumbing, more insulation, and wall covering. It is my hope that within the next few months we will be able to move into a habitable space.
My wife and I wish you all blessings of good health and joy, and to all a very Merry Christmas!
Thanksgiving week is here, and as excited as I am about the weeks worth of accomplishment, I’d like to start by saying we hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!
We came into town for a weeks worth of work, but wanted to take a little time to stop and smell the roses before diving right in to the work ahead. So Sunday, undaunted by the cold and damp weather, we headed out to see some of the local Gainesville sights. We first descended the boardwalk at the Devil’s Millhopper, a state geological park that features a deep natural sinkhole.
Then we toured the Museum of Natural History, which houses a huge butterfly rainforest exhibit.
Refreshed from a day of fun, Monday we started work on the boathouse. My goal for the day was to attach casters to the scaffolding so it could be easily moved, and get the back wall beam up and welded in place.
This was the longest and heaviest of the beams to be installed and I assumed the one that would give us the most trouble, if any at all.
Once the scaffolding was set up, my wife hoisted the first beam up using the double pulley system. I carefully maneuvered it onto the scaffold and then we wheeled it into position.
In all everything happened much smoother than anticipated, and in short order I had the beam leveled and welded to the frame. With plenty of daylight left we proceeded to get the north wall beam and south wall beam also installed. Exceeding our goal left me feeling very good about our progress and confident in our success.
After two more days and a few hiccups along the way, the progress was starting to look good. A little delay in making some minor adjustments to the rear rafters was needed, but they started going up smoothly. I joked with my wife that when we get home she could tell her friends that she lifted those heavy beams all by herself!
Thanksgiving day we were able to finish the rear rafters and weld up the border pieces for the front section. My Aunt & Uncle joined us for the holiday and were quite impressed with the progress we had made. It was nice to take a break and enjoy a holiday spread that reminded me of older times.
We came back Friday ready to work and hopeful to finish everything. Aside from some minor issues that were easily resolved, we managed to have everything done by 6:30 pm.
This week has been a major milestone on our journey to moving home. Getting the entire loft frame safely installed with only the two of us was an accomplishment that was deeply gratifying. I put my faith in God to guide me and he has never let me down.
On a side note, we sighted quite a bit of wildlife on this trip, which is not so unusual. There apparently is a family of field mice that had taken up residence in the front corner of the boathouse where there is some remaining stuff piled up. I found them quite cute as they darted out to spy on us and then run back to cover. The day before Thanksgiving we saw a whole flock of wild turkeys hiding out from the hunters on our property. Also a majestic buck has been taking cautious notice of our coming and going on the farm, and I am happy to see he seems unafraid, almost as if he is welcoming us into his forest.
We came up for a short weekend to finish painting all the steel and make preparations for Thanksgiving week, when I will be welding the loft frame into place.
While we were there I found a single section of scaffolding leaning against the back of our building. I pulled it out, inspected and lubed the hinge points and lock pins and got that set up. The Good Lord always provides everything you need when you are following his path.
I used the scaffold to test my double pulley system for hoisting the beams and that worked better than expected.
It took a fair amount of ingenuity to safely attach the system to the peak of the roof. I got very close using a nut tied on a string launched from a slingshot, but close is never good enough. I looked around and noticed a few fishing poles left over from all the stuff we had removed and had an idea. I tied the nut and string to the end of the fishing line and standing on the deck of the scaffold, the fishing pole was just long enough to push the nut through the small gap at the peak of the rafters. Once it had fallen through the opposite side, I used the string to pull a heavier rope through the gap and hoist one end of the pulley system into place. Success!
The pulley system was a big help for lifting the heavier main beams onto the sawhorses for my lovely wife to finish painting.
While she was hard at work on that, I proceeded to move some old CD/DVD shelves I had made out of scrap oak, into the new workshop for storage and organization. I spent a fair amount of time cleaning my father’s old tools, and organizing them along with my collection into proper order. Now I have a collection of drills, saws, sanders, routers, pneumatic nailers, and hand tools that is more than I could have ever dreamed of. My wife, done with painting, went back to organization, which she had already done plenty of while we were doing all the initial cleanup.
Now, having some space to start arranging all the little containers of fasteners she had sorted, the workshop is progressing toward a usable state.
It has been an enormous effort just to get us this far, while working 2 full time jobs, living 2 hours away, and taking this on by ourselves. There still seems to be a ton of work to be done before we are able to move into a habitable space, but we are staying focused on our goal and remaining optimistic. Every drop of sweat we’ve invested and every inch we move the ball forward is immeasurably rewarding. As we head back to our city lives exhausted from the weekend, we both feel emotionally and spiritually recharged.
FXT LEATHER 