Cabin part 4: Stick frame lower level

 

Here's a pretty shot to start out this segment. This was taken shortly after sunrise, a week after we'd done the drain tile and backfilling work and the day that the carpentry started. In between, Gale had added more backfill so the carpenters could walk up to the corner of the building to get materials down into the lower level to begin construction. Here's what the structure looked like just before the carpenters arrived.



Hooray! Here come the carpenters... Nace Hagemann Construction and his crew. The Power Trio of Nace, Matt and Mark did an outstanding job for us over the course of the next few days.

At left, Matt and Mark are putting up the joists for the floor of the lower level. These are 2x12s, which are really heavy. They also added blocking between the studs for additional stability. By the end of the day, they had the flooring structure completed.

Bruce and I took a break underneath the floor joists that evening, sitting on the bedrock. We also saw some lovely clouds above the ICF walls shortly afterward.

The next day, the crew wasted no time in getting the floor over the joists and erecting the eastern wall. Mark said that usually a margarita party, with dancing, would be held on a newly installed floor, but it was only 9:00 in the morning so we didn't follow that tradition.

Construction continued for the next two days, and by the end we had some very sturdy walls. The log cabin is a lot heavier than a standard stick-frame structure; some logs weigh up to 600 pounds, from what we've been told. So the stick-frame construction may seem overbuilt, but we all felt that we were better off over-building than under-building.

Construction details continued after we left; the weather had turned nasty so the pace slowed down. Nace put the finishing structural touches on the deck on Friday, October 11, one day before the cabin was moved to its new home (post following).