The sleeping loft

We have busted it pretty hard and the place is finally looking like a house (or at least a deluxe shed)!  I took Thursday off from work to frame in the gable ends and add collar ties at the top of the rafters. For the uninitiated, collar ties are boards that are added at the peak where each side’s rafters meet.  The collar tie helps to ensure that the boards cannot separate and splay out causing the roof to fail.  In typical trusses that most people have in new houses, all of the internal pieces are connected by several cross beams (which also make the attic area of most new houses almost unusable.

The open gable ends, about to be framed

Anyhow, I got the collar ties in and the gable ends framed including large windows in the front and the back.  I had to run the generator to power the saws of course, but I shut it down whenever I could and it was so peaceful up there.  I could just imagine standing in the top of the place looking out over the woods and hearing only the wind and water.

The collar ties are the horizontal boards near the peak of each set of rafters

It was in the 20s on Thursday morning so all of the rain that had fallen into the open shell was frozen on the floor.  As I was working alone, it was pretty treacherous and kept me on my toes.  It really highlighted how urgent a roof overhead is to keep things safe and intact.

Making progress on the gable ends

What made the collar ties and gable framing so urgent is that I have decided to hire a guy to put the actual roof on the place.  I have no safety equipment and since the roof is a 10:12 pitch, it is far too steep to easily traverse without it.  Without the work I finished up, however, it would not have been safe for him to be up there either.  Hopefully the roof will be on this weekend so I can finish buttoning up the building for winter.

I got a big window framed into each end of the gable

A little cleaner…mind the gap!

So, after I finished up that work, I cleaned up the 25 pounds of sawdust that I had generated and sat and enjoyed the view.  It was such a nice day and I started really seeing the place come together.    There’s no shortage of work left to do but we are nearly to a point where I can start to really employ child labor to finish the inside…”Hey kids, momma and I are going to take a walk…don’t fight and hang some sheet rock, would you?”

See all of the progress on the cabin