Framing Complete

After about 8 weeks of bad weather, the Christmas holidays, framing challenges, more material orders than I can count, and allot of time spent with Judah (our amazing framer), we have a house!  The roof decking was completed today along with all the eves, rakes, and overhangs.  All that is left is the rear porch roof and columns, the small eyebrow roof over the garage doors, all the shear wall bracing and steel stealing, and miscellaneous odds and ends. 

Overall, it's a pretty impressive structure.  The ceilings are really high, and the trusses look fantastic even in their raw form before being sanded or sealed.  The rear tall wall was particularly challenging, as it is 28 feet tall in the center, 36 feet wide, and needs to withstand hurricane force winds.  It contains a large steel moment frame as well as some creative LVL framing to transfer the wind loads into the side walls as well as into a center wind beam, which carries those forces to a reinforced shear wall next to the stairs. 

We made a few changes on the fly, which included the addition of a garage rear dormer in the frog (finished room over garage), a roof change that allowed a pass through hallway from the frog to the front balcony, and some other more minor things.   There is an incredible amount of Simpson hardware in the house (see the picture), including hold downs to anchor shear walls to the foundation, straps to keep the walls in place, bases to tie down the porch posts to the foundation, and allot more straps, hangers, screws, etc.  I'll try and include pictures of the more important items. 

The next step is to call for a sheathing inspection for the nailing of all sheathed wall panels (prior to installing waterproofing on the walls), and prior to covering the roof.  After that, we start on the Prosoco wall waterproofing system, which includes a fluid applied flashing at all seams and joints in the sheathing, and a rolled-on fluid applied membrane on all exterior surfaces that is waterproof but also bar permeable, taking the place of house wrap.  The entire roof gets a peel and stick ice and water shield underlayment (Midstate Quik-Stick HT) and then 29 gauge Tuff Rib metal roof in a galvalume finish (to match the existing roof). 

After all that, the exterior siding (Hardie shake in front and lap siding on rest) will get started while I am inside doing all the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC work myself with the help of as many friends as I can lure over here with the promise of oysters and beer.  I am expecting the rough ins to take at least a couple of months.  

Pretty Much Finished Framing

Sneak Peak of the Action for the Next Blog Post!