This was going to be a big week. We had some friends visiting so I wanted to finish the walls and get them raised while they were around, always a big moment when building a house. Before this could be achieved I needed to finish framing and figure out the logistics of getting them vertical. So there was lots of work to be done.
Watch a time lapse to see what I got up to this week:
Day 15
Today was a very productive day! The friends who are staying with us right now kindly offered to help with the house (thanks Andrea and Brady!). We managed to buy, cut and lay out all of the wood for the last wall in one day. This would have taken me a lot longer by myself!
It took me a little while to figure out how to best utilise all of this extra man power, but we quickly got Andrea cutting wood to length on the chop saw and Brady measuring and laying out the wall while I made up the door and window headers.
The last wall laid out
Day 16
With Brady helping out today our first challenge was to figure out how to nail together the last wall (which remained mostly dry :)). As it was being built on the floor it would be quite big to move as one piece, so we figured out a way to build it in two sections to then be nailed together once in place.
Getting things figured out. Wearing a tool belt supposedly means you know what you are doing (it doesn’t)
Day 17
I started the day by doing some preparation work for the wall raising, which meant running around ticking off little minute things whilst also trying to mentally prepare myself. I had invited some friends over to lend a hand who I had promised to cook for and ply with alcohol. I wanted to be ready to put all of this man power to work.
Once people started arriving we ate vegan chilli and Caesar salad (thanks Carly) while I gave people the tour of the will-be house. After going over the plan with everyone we started raising the walls. I had been concerned about lifting the large wall off of the trailer, but with this many people it wasn’t hard at all to get it vertical. We raised the first three walls in no time at all and they lined up well. Once in-place, I added temporary 2×4 braces inside and out on each wall to ensure they could not fall and stand unsupported.
It wasn’t all work
Maybe I should have used a spirit level on this one…
Getting things lined up
Brady trying out the shower room window
Day 18
Brady had suggested going over early to fix the error and get resolution with ‘our’ wall. I hope this wasn’t because he felt any responsibility for the error, but I jumped at the chance to get a helping hand in going back with fresh eyes to get things sorted.
After re-measuring to make sure we had correctly identified the issue, we took Simon’s advice and used a sawzall to cut through some nails which were holding the error in place. Once this was done we were able to square the area and get the wall sitting on the floor.
Cutting through 8 header nails to correct the mistake
It’s starting to look like a house!
Getting the walls raised was another big milestone in the project. I felt very lucky to have so much help this week and friends there to lend a hand and celebrate the moment. After working so hard on the house I have been left feeling very tired recently, both mentally and physically. I think a little break from the project is needed before getting back to it.
morehawes
Great progress.
– looking forward to the roof! 🙂