Wall Framing and Subfloor

Now we're talking! Today I was able to frame the walls and get the flooring in. The walls are alternating 4x4 and 2x4. When I am done there will be three pairs of doors in the front and one pair of doors on each side. The 4x4 provide the extra spacing to make the pairs look right. They are also the load carriers for the roof.

The next step will be to build another beam for the roof and get it on top of the wall... I will need help for that to pick it up. I've asked my friend to come over tomorrow and help me start the roof! Yeeha.

Floor Joists

So next I just finished the floor joists.... well, enough to take a picture of them. Every joist in this picture has two joist hangers, and each joist hanger has four small nails and two huge nails. That's a lot of nailing and as of this picture I have not finished nailing them all in, but it started to look cool so I took a picture.

I also added some more hardware to the tops of the posts (between the post and beam) to secure the beam to the posts.

The Ledger, Posts, and Beam

I forgot to mention that I put the ledger on the house while I was digging holes for the footings. Having the ledger on the house gave me a reference point to measure from to know exactly where the center of the posts would be. It also gave me a reference point for how high to make the posts. The ledger was simply two PT 2x8 attached to the house using 5" lag bolts with washers. I made sure that the lag bolts where placed so that they either hit the sill of the house or the studs of the wall.

The way that I did my posts was to simply cut them too long and then secure them to the footings using anchors. Then I got out my water level (because I'm low tech still) and marked a mark on each of the post that was 11.5 inch. below the top of the ledger. This is the top of the posts since I want the top of my 2x12 beam to be level with the top of the ledger. This part took some time to mark and get it right - I think I checked about 5 times before I cut the posts with my circular saw.

Then I constructed my 3 wide 2x12 beam by simply slapping two 2x12s together and screwing them together and then adding a third and screwing that together. I put screws every 16 inches in each piece of wood. I did this in place (sitting right on top of the posts) because I did not have anyone to help me pick it up when I was done. I remembered to make the outside 2x12 1.5 inches longer than the rest so that the end joists would fit nicely...

Here is a picture of the ledger, posts and beam finished - now we get to start to see how big this sucker will be...



















Here is a close up of the outside joists and the connection to the beam.



















And here is the joint in the middle on the beam - yes the offsets where planned that way.

New Design approved and posts are in.

I went to the building department to have my drawing approved and they were fine with the new design. So I went to work finishing up the three holes. All I used to dig the holes was a shovel and post hole digger. I had done this once before at another house and ended up renting an auger, but with only three holes to dig I figured I could skip it. The dirt also ended up being very easy to dig so I was very pleased with how the digging went.

Once the holes where dug I called the town to come and "inspect" the holes. This is to make sure you don't skimp on the depth of the hole. They came by the next day (during the week) and looked at them for about 15 seconds. Approved!

I then had to get cement - I decided, on my way home from work to get some of the cement in my Mini. Well, it turns out that my Mini doesn't hold much more than 800 lbs so I couldn't get much cement. I needed 5 80lbs bags per hole so that was 1200 lbs of cement to get. I'll make a long story short and say that next time I'll bring the Jeep and I'll get more than I think I need (it's always easier to return a bag then to run out in the middle of pouring cement to get one more bag).

So then all I had to do is rent a cement mixer and start mixing cement. I actually think this is fun so I had a blast doing this part. You have to mix water into it until it sticks together and the rocks in it shouldn't roll anymore. I also ignore the sign on the cement mixer that says not to stick the shovel in while it's going - that's the best part!

Once I had each post poured I lined up my strings again to find where the post's center would be and stuck the "J" bolt down into the post leaving about 1 in. above the top of the post to connect the post anchor to later. When all was said and done (and it had cured overnight) I took a picture to show my work. You can see all three posts in this picture and the "J" bolts sticking up on each one.

Small issue with digging the footings

I called Digsafe earier in the week and they told me that they only mark cable, electric, and gas lines. Since I have a water line and sewer line I needed to call my town office to fine out how to have these pipes marked - I wanted to stay away from the sewer and water lines because they are, no doubt the oldest pipes coming into my house. It only took them a couple days to come by and mark all the stuff that had to be marked (it turned out that I only have one water/sewer trench and one gas line coming into my house).

Well, I went to dig four holes (each one needs to be 48 inches deep and 12 inches in diameter) for the four footings that I had originaly designed the porch to have but realized that I would be very close to the yellow flags for the gass line that the dig safe guy had put on the front lawn. I decided to dig anyway, but to take it easy once I got to the level I thought the gas pipe would be ( I judged this by looking where it came into the basement)....

Well, it seems that the marker was a bit off and it turns out that the gas pipe goes directly through the whole I need to did for one of the footings.

Soooooo, I will need to change the design to have only three footings I guess. I am bringing the following design in to the building department for them to ok to change, we'll see what they say.

Demolition Done!

Well, It's gone! I was very happy to finish this part in just one day. Thanks to Tod for all the help. But as one passer-by said, "That was the easy part."

Finishing up the Demolition

So then we went to work on the decking - this should not take long.

Here Is a close-up of the carpenter ant damage that I found when I went to hit the end of the porch with a sledge hammer and it went right through!
Carpenter Ant Damage

Roof Down

So far so good. We were able to finish the roof off right after lunch. Tod (right) and I (left) possed for a picture before starting on the deck.

No more roof.

Ceiling is down.

The ceiliing is down. Now to see what we can do about the shingles.

Ceiling opened up.

Demolition day!

I got a friend to help me start tearing down the old porch today. I was so excited to start that I forgot to take a picture before we started. I'm glad I remembered before going too far. Tod is working on the shingles while I tear down the ceiling.

Demolition underway