My Construction Project Saga

[elfiii]

If yall would take a shower before ya left home you wouldn't even need one out there,,,,, unless you intended to stay two or three weeks.

I kin tell you ain't been deer huntin' in West GA during early archery season. You take an ice cold shower before you go to the woods and another one when you get to your tree stand.

 

[jmharris23]

That looks great Lee!

 

[dawg2]

Dang, nice improvements since I saw it!

 

[elfiii]

Well, 2 weeks later and we are coming up out of the ground and that's a good thing.




23 80 lb bags of concrete the hard way. Those holes in the ground held a lot more volume than I anticipated. Pi * the radius squared * the height might be the volume of a cylinder but that don't work in Pine Mountain. There must be a warp in the time/space continuum at those coordinates.





All the posts are set and have 2 coats of finish paint up to the braces. I'll waterproof the concrete later once it has set up good.



4 of the 8 sill plates primed, painted and ready to go.



More timbers primed.



Still got 4 timbers to prime and paint.

As per usual we hit a couple of "snags". The back post on the existing structure had a little rot at ground level. I cleaned that up yesterday and applied waterproofing. I plan on pouring a concrete ledger to support the existing sill and the sill that will tie in to the existing structure at that point.

The big problem is the existing structure is 2" out of square at the front right corner up top. The "crapenter" that built this thing must have been drunk when that post got set. There is no way a 4" x 8" cedar timber is going to "bend" 2". We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Next weekend we get started on the floor system. Hopefully we get 7 of the 8 sills set and start hanging floor joists. I'm tired of grunt work and I'm ready to move on to the carpentry part.

I still have lots of details to figure out. I did put a lot of thought into it before starting but when you build on the fly problems pop up and that usually means a 34 mile ride round trip to the Home Depot in Lagrange and 2 hours shot out. The good thing is I "learned" on the original cabin and won't make the same mistakes twice.

 

[Dustin Pate]

Looking good!

 

[NCHillbilly]

Lookin' good, Lee! Gonna be all fancy down there-next thing you know, y'all'll be shavin' your beards and wearin' capri pants.

 

[elfiii]

Lookin' good, Lee! Gonna be all fancy down there-next thing you know, y'all'll be shavin' your beards and wearin' capri pants.

No shaving allowed at deer camp. As long as the capris are frayed cut offs you're good to go.

 

[.]

Man that looks like too much hot sweaty work. I'da been seriously thinking about trailering in something prefab and dropping it in place.

The rent to own portable building place here has 2 room cabins for $19.99 a month x 80 years. They'll even level it for ya.

 

[elfiii]

What a difference 2 weeks make. Weekend before last all the sill plates and support piers went in. The support piers are lap jointed and concreted in.







This weekend the floor system went in. I cheated and used joist hangers.








The last of the timbers have been primed and painted.



Next weekend we go up top and finish the framing and hopefully get the roof system in. The weekend after that we deck and roof and we'll be turning the corner.

This weekend was blistering hot and muggy. Ain't looking forward to the next two weekends! Putting a steel roof on in 90+ degree heat is going to be you know what. 90 in West GA is like 105 anywhere else in this state.

Once the roof is on at least we will be able to work in the shade. Mostly.

 

[mtr3333]

Awesome! Ain't nothing wrong with joist hangers. Very nice.

 

[chadeugene]

Lookin' good boys!

 

[jbird1]

Good Stuff!

 

[sman]

Nice.

 

[Silver Britches]

Looking good! No doubt some hard work, but it has to be enjoyable. Hey, at least you're in the woods.

Also, where's the fancy cleaning rack? You guys do kill deer don't you?

Overall, a nice little place to get away!

Good luck the rest of the way and have a great hunting season.

 

[BornToHuntAndFish]

Mighty good job well done. Very impressive. Lots for you & your crew to be proud of. Sure is tons of hard work & sacrifice in ya'lls fine efforts. Thanks for teaching us lots of lessons on how to make a home away from home hunting lodge & camp. Hope ya'll have a blast enjoying the new deer camp this season & many more to come. Best of luck to you & your crew this deer season.

 

[elfiii]

Also, where's the fancy cleaning rack? You guys do kill deer don't you?

No deer camp is deer camp without one.

 

[Miguel Cervantes]

Once the roof is on at least we will be able to work in the shade. Mostly.

Murphy's law says it'll be 68 degrees in the middle of the day in full blazing sun when that happens. You'll have to wear sweat shirts in late August just to work. I'll be ready to go for round two if that happens.

 

[elfiii]

Weekend before last was miserable. The young bucks didn't show and it was raining cats and dogs so it was up to Doug and I to press on.

Friday afternoon we cut the reverse of the dovetails on the posts and then fit the first cross member and notched up the dovetails. It fit so we tried it on the other posts and it fit them pretty close as well so we had a pattern to use for the other cross members.



Once all the cross members were in the next item up on the agenda was the rest of the top band.



That's where the fun began. The posts have been in the ground for a while and "adjusted" to the ambient temperature and humidity which is to say they were no longer either plumb or straight up top. All 4 members of the top band had to be "custom fitted". That means lifting them up top, holding them there, marking them, taking them down, cutting them, lifting them back up, measuring the fit, taking them back down, cutting some more, rinse and repeat. You got any idea how much a 4" x 8" 12 foot long cedar beam weighs? A lot. Lifting it up an 8' step ladder right near the edge of the floor and holding it in place and marking it for an almost precision cut is scary. Don't try this at home folks. We are trained professionals - AKA surviving contestants of the TV series "Jackass".

The really bad part was one of the timbers "curled" on me really bad. It's the one in the foreground. I had to cut it half in two and then "ease" the lap joint. You can see the seam. Where it joins the other 12 x 12 frame we had to tie a rope around the top and pull it in at a 45 degree angle about 6 inches before we nailed it to get everything back close to "square". The good thing about dovetail notches is they pull the structure in on its' self over time so the frame will tighten up on its' own. Might take 2 or 3 years but it will get there.

All of the top band timbers are lap jointed into the dovetailed cross members and the dovetailed ends on the middle cross members are housed into the lap jointed band timbers with a snug fit. Not bad for a "crapenter".

Note the mud. It was infernal!



That brings us to last weekend and the roof system. Naturally nobody else showed so it was up to me. Friday morning was spent driving all over Troup Co. to the steel yard to get the steel roofing then off to Home Depot in LaGrange for lumber and plywood. When I got back to camp with the trailer heavily laden with building materials I discovered one of the sheets of steel was only a half sheet buried in the bundle so back to the steel yard I go.

Finally around 1:00 pm Friday I got started actually working. By dark I had gotten in most of the rafters, including notching them in with lap joints on the outside band.



Saturday morning was slow progress. I had to take the roof off of the existing structure, "shave" some overlap on the plywood decking and then cut the existing rafter tails off flush with the existing cross member. Since the addition has two different roof lines at 90 degrees to each other I had to cut and fit a 12' 2 x 8 nail board for the rafter tails where the "front" part of the addition joins the back part and then lag bolt it into the posts. I may support the rafter tails with a ledger later. Haven't decided yet.

After that it was on to purlins and decking. By dark Saturday the frame was done and the decking laid and screwed down. Never you mind about that "daylight" you can see in a couple of places. Like I said, the top was out of square so the plywood didn't hit center on all the rafters and purlins. Nobody is ever going to notice an extra purlin here and there.



That was all followed by the next disaster. Yesterday morning I awakened about 7 and the first thought on my mind was the realization the steel yard didn't sell me enough steel. He sold me exactly half what I needed.

Lord, I pray for Your forgiveness for the long string of profanity I let fly yesterday morning. It was un Christian like, a violation of #7 on top of #8 and for this I am heartily sorry and repentant. You do have to admit it was some fine swearin' though.

Here's what it looks like up top, sans 9 pieces of steel roofing.




So, here's where we are. The roof is decked and mostly roofed. Both the roof and the floor on the addition tied in perfectly with the existing structure. The new rafter tails that tie in with the existing structure are "iffy" because the carpenter bees made homes in the existing rafter tails over the years and they are full of holes and the new rafter tails butt up against the old ones perfectly. I'll definitely have to put a ledger in to support the new rafter tails but that's just screwing up a 12' 2 x 4 under the ends of the rafter tails, 5 minutes max and I'm good to go.




I cleaned up the job site yesterday when I finished screwing down the steel I had. With the roof almost done and the site cleaned up it's a sign I've turned the corner and I'm on the home stretch. All the hard scary part is done and all that's left is studs, purlins, siding, a back door and steps, "winders" and paint and she's dried in, done on the outside and ready to be tricked out on the inside and that is a satisfying feeling.

Hopefully the full crew is laid on for next weekend and by next Sunday afternoon I'll be completely dried in.

 

[GoodRaven]

That's a mighty fine deer camp you have. The work you did looks much better than the average "crapenter" work. Great job Elfii, looks like you will be feeling the satisfaction of actually completing a job well done very soon. Enjoy it!

 

[shakey gizzard]

Lookin good! Where's the garden?