Weekend of 16/17 March 2007 Earlier, I wrote that we had finished the exterior wall. Mark worked really hard this weekend to finish nailing the shear wall to specs. One of the running jokes that the inspector has been making is that we have so many nails in the shear walls. Jeff came out on Friday to do the inspection on the first floor shear walls. The very first thing he marked as ‘incomplete’ was the plate nailing. He drew a line on the plywood and said that we needed to have shear nailing at the plate line: more nails! So we worked furiously for about an hour and a half, putting in about 1500 nails. Jeff came back and signed us off for the first floor shear nailing. Below you can see some pictures of me working on the second floor walls. For perspective, the fence in the foreground is 6′ high.

Shear Wall Work

Shear Wall Work

On Saturday Greg and John came up and Greg cut in the first half of the stairs and the landing up to the loft. Greg really worked our crew. At one point, I was 3rd in line (behind Pop and Mark) to cut wood on the chop saw for Greg. We also built the ‘sound wall’ that separates the master bedroom from the guest suite. This is a wide 2×6 wall that uses staggered 2x4s as the studs. The insulation in the wall will wind in between the studs. The studs do not touch and so any noises will not travel as easily through the wall. Apparently, this is how the shared walls for townhouses are built. This wall was very hard to build becaase we didn’t have enough room to build the wall on the floor and so the wall had to be built standing up.

Weekend of 11/12 March 2007 As Pop and Greg are working on planning the loft and roof, they have realized there are problems (yet again) with the plans as drafted and engineered. The plans are drawn with the building height measured from the first story finished floor, instead of the grade. This means that the overall height of our house will be 14 inches higher than what was approved by the city. Those who have been following our saga will remember that the building height was a touchy subject during the approvals process. Bill talked to the city, and Nick, the City’s planner came out to visit the site. He and Pop talked about ways to remedy our situation. Nick didn’t give us a decision, but the city eventually gave us permission to make the change that Pop had proposed. He basically flattened out the shed roof of the loft and reduced the height of the building by the needed 14 inches. Yay, Pop! The shear wall continued to get fully nailed in. I purchased a new 4000 count box of nails for the nail gun. We also worked on attaching the walls to the paralams with 18 inch bolts and PHD6 connectors. We also put up a bunch of straps to connect the first floor to the second floor. Each of the 6 foot long straps is attached to the walls with 56 nails. Sheesh.

Everyone knows the definition of Sweat Equity (and if you don’t, click here). Looking back on the past 6 weeks, I have come up with a new term for what is going on at my house : Stress Equity. This past week has been wonderful because there is no forecast for rain or wind and the weather has been exceedingly calm. This great weather further contrasts the past 6 weeks’ misery. Looking at the past 6 weeks from a believer’s standpoint brings to mind yet another term : Mercy Equity with mercy being defined as “Not getting what I deserve”* . What fool would pull the roof off before the rainy season and still live in the house? God has been merciful to my family in these past months by a relatively dry and calm winter, and when it did rain / blow, damage was temporary and family and friends were quick to help. * I had originally thought to use the term ‘Grace Equity’ but from our pastor at Reality Carpinteria, I heard the following definitions : Grace = ‘Getting what I don’t deserve’ and Mercy = ‘Not getting what I do deserve’.

We put up the last of the exterior walls onto the second floor this weekend. On Friday, Greg came and laid out the last of the walls. Mark worked on putting up the shear walls. Saturday, Linda came with Mark and we all worked on shear paneling and strapping. We used up all the 2×6 studs that had been purchased, and all of the 1/2″ plywood is on the second floor. We must be getting close: we are using up the lumber. We still have a lot of wood left. Most of it is really long pieces (14′, 16′, 20′, 22′). I don’t know where we are going to use all these pieces. I took some panorama shots of the interior. I am still learning about how to do this as you can see by the jagged edges and the hole in the middle of one. In the south looking photo, Pop is hanging a small swing in the header of the slider door to his balcony. And in the north looking one, Max is swinging on a different swing Pop made for him.

Looking North (to the mountains) from the top of the stairs
(size = 4594 x 1526)

Looking South (to the beach) From The Guest Sleeping Room
(size = 2388 x 896)

Click on the above pictures to see the full sized image. They are very large. The link will open the picture into a new window. If you are using IE, you can see the full sized image. In the new window, move your mouse over the lower right hand corner of the picture and a button with 4 diagonal arrows will show up. Click on that button and the image will show regular size. You can then use the scroll bars to see the closer image.