Well, the start of a roof anyway…
The next step in getting our house framed out – the rafters! We had assistance with the start of the rafter building, but Eli and I had to finish up their assembly and get them mounted in place on top of our walls after our helpers had to leave us. We’re doing our roof a bit differently than many other tiny houses. After talking about our roof framing with a friend who was a licensed structural engineer for awhile, we decided to go a different route for our roof framing. Instead of a ridge beam or ridge board, we’re going with plywood gusset plates connecting each rafter pair at the peak and blocking between the rafter pairs. There was much gluing and screwing to attach the plywood gusset plates to the rafters. But, we finally got all those bad boys fully constructed. I came home from work the next day to find an industrious Eli had gotten all the rafters in place up on the top plates of the walls while I was away at work! Making sure our roof could weather the winds of the road (and a hurricane!), we used Simpson Strong-Tie H1 Hurricane Ties to anchor our rafters to our walls. While Eli fastened the rafters to the hurricane ties, I manned the “Great Stuff”! We had decided to replace parts of the plywood center of our header “sandwiches” with spray foam insulation (we used the brand Great Stuff) for a little bit more insulative value to our walls. Filling those voids in the headers was an adventure that left the headers with a lovely “decor”.
Unfortunately, all the wildfires rampaging California have made for horrid air quality in the Sacramento area for the past couple weeks. Not ideal for our lungs during the build, but we’re just thankful we haven’t had any substantial fires in our vicinity.
With so many elements now in place, and the need to take a few weeks or more hiatus (Eli’s got a lot of field time in the near future and we’re also going on a backpacking trip on the Olympic Peninsula and a canoe trip!), we decided Hygge Hale needed a rain coat in case of rogue thunderstorms, not super likely, but wouldn’t be an oddity this time of year either.
House wrap! That is a big step! I love that you guys made your own rafters. Very cool. My friends shared the Alone in the Wilderness video series with Rio and I and I thought you would enjoy it as well. It is about Dick Proenneke and his 30 years of living alone in the Alaskan wilderness. He built his own cabin with hand tools and he had to make many of the handles before he could use the tools! Inspirational and makes me thankful we are not building a house with just hand tools. Very relaxing after a day of working on the house.
Thanks! The Alone in the Wilderness films sound awesome! We’ll definitely have to check them out. It sounds right up my alley. Though, I have to admit we were pretty bummed when our nail gun was out of commission for a bit and we had to nail the sheathing on with just a hammer. Hope all is going smoothly with your house renovation! I really like the idea of renovating an old house instead of building new — though, I know there are a lot of challenges to doing that. Thanks again for letting us know of that series.
It looks super. We wish we lived closer so we could help or take part in the construction.
Mom and Dad
We wish you did, too! We’d love to put you to work and have your help! 🙂 Next visit is a work vacation! 😉