Slowly but surely

There is not too much news to report today, but I did manage to cut the four top plates. A good friend stopped by and help oil the finished beams. Now I'm down to rafters and joists.

I'm not sure of the origin of the snake, but it has guarded the dust pile for the duration of the project.

...not well enough though; the cats still prefer it to the litter box.

Lots of planing

Today I made a mountain of wood chips. In the process, I squared and dimensioned the remaining pile of timbers. These will become joists, plates and purlins.

Change of plans

Tonight I was going to spend the night planing, but due to a band practice across the room, I opted for a quieter activity. I spent about four hours cleaning, sharpening and adjusting my tools.

One of these things is not like the others...

This was the second wrong cut so far. I think I'm doing pretty well. I was told a proverb by a German friend: Wo gehobelt wir, da fallen Spane. I found more than one English translation, but this one made the most sense "where wood is chopped, splinters must fall".  As far as I can tell it has come to mean mistakes don't happen when work isn't being done.

In any case, it was nothing that couldn't be fixed with a couple of decking screws. It will be hidden anyway. What did people do before drywall screws and duct tape? Were there fewer mistakes?
The  braces are cut, but I need to find a band saw to scallop the underside. They will look much better with a little bit of a curve to them.

Posts and Ties

With only three solid days of work, I can finally see the raising happening in the near future. The posts and ties are all finished, which contained the most complicated joinery in the frame.

It has been a really enjoyable time, listening to music and audiobooks while making dust. I have had daily visits from the mail lady and UPS man to check on my progress. I also enjoy the baffled looks on the faces of the neighborhood kids as they try to imagine what I'm building.

Every time I sand and oil another piece, I get more excited. The oiled sticks look really great against the oak bunks, which is how they should look with the oak knee braces and floor.

More Sketchup Models

This is my most recent model showing the siding that I'm going to use  and the actual window that I have. The bay window and door are just stock models, so they will be different on my house.

This should be a fairly accurate representation of the frame, although it is missing purlins.

Posts

I had a productive day finally! All of the difficult joinery on the posts is cut. The two internal posts are completely finished, sanded an oiled. It feels really good to have some pieces that are completely done, ready for raising day.

The next step is to cut the brace pockets in the posts and make the braces, ties and plates. After that, I can raise the frame! The rafters and joist can be cut and installed later.

I am sorry for my absence- my major project at the moment has been fixing a diesel Jetta that I have had in my basement for 8 months... way to long. I am sick of driving a gas guzzling truck around. I want my greasecar back! Anyway, it will be another week or so on that project, and then back to the house full time!

I picked up the floorboards a couple of weeks ago from Larry. The wood looks great, but it will need to be planed and edged. It should look amazing in the cabin though. I really like the look of random width flooring like this, and it will contrast 

the pine well. I planed one piece to see how it would look, and it came 

out nicer than I could have imagined. I was expecting Red Oak, but this piece was White oak, even nicer! It is stacked and stickered in another corner of the firehouse until I am ready for it. I dont know what I would do without this space (yet I am planning on moving into a space half the size of my bedroom?).

Knee braces and a floor

I made another trip out to Rutland this morning to pick up some oak stock from Larry. I am using oak for the knee braces to contrast the pine in the rest of the frame. While I was there he made me a deal on a stack of oak 1 by material for my floors. Slowly but surely, the pieces are coming together.

It has been another really busy week at work and I don't have much to speak of in terms of progress. After the weekend I should have much more time though, so check back to see the house take shape!

Here is a blog for another timberframed tiny house. This guy built his onto an old camper frame. 

http://www.minimalmansion.com/

Who says you can't have a house show in 100 square feet?

Also, most of one bent is standing!

A typical New England day

When I bought my first car in Massachusetts, I learned about "typical new england rust". Almost every advertisement for a car over eight years old has this in the description. It is passed off as something unimportant and unavoidable. I have learned that for a car, it is like being diagnosed with a terminal cancer and only a couple of years to live. Like "typical new england rust", we also have "typical new england days". Depending on the time of the year this phrase is used, it can mean anything from mud, fog, snow, slush, ice, flooding and anything else messy revolving around the weather. We have had a lot of these days this spring.

Because of the rain, work was cut short and I got to come home early. While drinking my third coffee of the morning and drooling over tools and building materials on craigslist, I stumbled across an add for a heavy duty, tandem axle trailer with an 8' x 12' bed. No mention of the dreaded "typical new england rust"! I spoke to the owner and by two o clock I was at his house checking it out, by three driving it home through the torrential rain, and at three thirty struggling to back it up the 20% grade hill that I live on.

I plan on building the frame of the house onto the trailer so that I am able to move it, and to avoid zoning laws. Because it is going to be so tall I will make the roof panels and rafters removable so that I can legally haul it on the road. It is not really going to be a mobile home and I don't plan on moving it too much, but since I have put so much work into this and am not ready to settle in any one area yet, I like the idea of having it be transportable.

The first joint

Today I fitted the first pieces together! With a little bit of paring with the chisel and a few authoritative blows with the mallet, the tong and fork joints slipped together beautifully! After so many months working on individual parts, this was a really satisfying moment. There are only three pieces of the sill together and already I am starting to place the wood stove and furniture into the meager footprint of my house, aranging them and planning out the internal design. I now have a good idea of the amount of space that I have to work with. Surprisingly, It seems bigger than I imagined it.

In all the excitement however, I managed to cut the last piece of the sill one foot too short. Measure twice, cut once. I called Larry- he will have a new timber cut for me by Friday. Not bad. Now I need to figure out something creative to do with the extra timber.

A funny thing happens at the end of a productive bout of work. I see it again and again working on projects with my dad, at school or at work. After a long day of work, everyone involved will sit back and gaze contently at the day's progress. For myself, there are often some thoughts of what needs to be done or what I could have done better, but these are dominated by the feeling of contentment and the vision of the finished project. After this momentous point, I have an even greater drive to finish. One more week of long hours at work and then I should have more time for my house.