POST 15: Trusses Incoming

In my limited experience of watching this building process take place, I realize that there are some true milestones that propel the sense of a house’s ‘houseness’ to come to light. The pouring of the foundation slab in the basement gave an accurate picture of the space’s footprint. The rough framing of the windows hinted at the amount of light that will enter the space. Yesterday, we had another jump in the formation of the house, which was the arrival of the trusses (the support skeleton for the roof). We had the trusses pre-manufactured in an indoor facility, a process that ensures straighter, drier and more uniform products. They arrived yesterday via a giant truck and a crane that lifted them up the 20’ height on the second floor.

Now that the shape of the roof is forming up, it is easier to understand the whole envelope of the house.

The view from below looking up the hillside. There is strange and unexpected illusion to this view, which is the house looks like an enormous mansion. Amusingly, when viewing the structure from above, it looks much more humble and unassuming.

Now the two bedrooms on the second floor feel live and in formation. Here are the main south facing windows in the master bedroom that look down the driveway:

There is a certain aesthetic to the jobsite. So much natural light colliding with the hard angles of the framing studs. Textures from OSB, the nartual grain of doug fir and all the equipment floating around:

Though owning a piece of land that has a ton of poison oak on it can be taxing, the good news is that in most summers, other plant species can overrun the nasty poison oak. This month, the top contender of crowding out evil with beauty, is the infamous daisy.

The week’s progress as of week 9 (6/24/11).

One of the interesting challenges to the whole housebuilding process, is to budget for items, of which there are many more than one might think, and to do so without spending every last penny. There have been some great financial triumphs (such as finding a used $1100 bath tub for $40 at a recycling depot), but some of my favorites are those that become projects. Two such endeavors that we have been working on this week are:

1. Vertical grain fir french doors for the basement:
   

   

   
   Instead of paying $350 for vinyl french doors, I found a nice pair at our local reuse center for $160. Granted they did need a fresh sanding, staining and urethaning…but really the end result is so much nicer.
   
   
2. Converted Bathroom Vanity from an antique buffet:
   

   

   
   

   

   
   After jigsawing out the hole for a kohler oval sink, there is much sanding, staining and spar urethaning to do prior to it being bathroom-ready.
   

   

   
   AA takes over the helm at the sawing. Forget paying $300 for a particle board piece of junk furniture when you can buy an old antique for less and do your own conversion! We’ll post pics when this is done.

We’re not the only ones with projects in our midst…these little guys have the greater task at hand…growing up!

And for a more dramatic sense of scale (I’m being such a boy…I know):

It may not have happened until LATE June, but one can’t help but feel that Summer has finally arrived in Oregon.