Roof is done and moving inside...finally

I realized I forgot to mention in the last post that the 3 layers of garage doors are all locked to the timber rafters with 10 or 12" screws so that they can't delaminate and blow away.  That is particularly important since the metal roof is only screwed into the garage doors, not the timbers, which presents several other interesting challenges.  First, the wood screws that it comes with don't work on the metal faces of the garage doors, so we had to get different fasteners.  Its a hidden faster roof, so no one else will know about the substitution.  Also, the tar paper doesn't adhere to the metal as well as it does to wood, so when the sun gets hot in the middle of the day it starts to slide.  That meant that we had to quit early some days so that we wouldn't tear up the tar paper as we installed the roof.  Minor details, right?  The installation started with the north and south eaves.

The eave piece gets attached, then the soffit pieces slide into place from the end

Once both eaves and soffits were installed, we started putting the roof pieces on.  When I say "we" I mean mostly Jeremy.  I tried really hard to get on the roof and help but my fear of heights got me in a big way.  Instead, I ferried everything from the ground up to Jeremy for a long, hard weekend as he walked the roof.  Each metal piece had to be carefully aligned with the ones already on the roof which meant he had to be at the peak and I had to be at the eave to line it up and then tap it in place with a rubber mallet.  It was slow work, but it looked exactly the way we wanted when we were done!

Jeremy on working on the north side roof - he's my hero!

It took almost a full day to get the chimney box installed correctly and then cut the roofing panels around it.  The result is great!  The bucket (in case you're wondering) is to keep the rain out until we put the finished chimney stack on.

After the roof panels and chimney came the gable end pieces.  They wrap all the way around and then have soffit covers like the north and south eaves, so they took a bit of work to get right, but it looks great now.  Last came the ridge cap!  In the picture below, you can see the first 2 windows installed also.

Finished roof and windows!

The roof got finished on 5/10 just before a rain storm (note the grey clouds in the pictures above).  Next came buttoning up the rest of the outside which meant windows!  Luckily, there aren't very many of them in the house, so it didn't take too long to get them installed.  We also found 3 nice exterior doors at the Habitat Restore and painted them to match each other.  Installing them in our very non-standard house took a bit of work, but they look beautiful now.

Our front door!

The white house wrap you see will be covered with cedar siding made from the cedar trees we harvested at my uncle's farm in Arkansas and some we got from western Kansas at some point in the future.  For now, it sheds water so we moved inside.

In the in between time on the roof, Jeremy, Matt and my brother, Scott, managed to get the floor framed in and a section of subfloor installed so that we had a solid place to put things in the house.  Now we run into another unique challenge from the building method we picked.  The interior walls are only furred out (1.5"), not full studs, so any horizontal run of wire that goes through an exterior wall has to get routed into the garage doors.  Also, all the light switches and outlets have to get routed out because they need more than 1.5" of clearance in the wall.  Our answer?  Sharpies.  We drew all the wire runs on the wall with all the outlets and notes for what was supposed to go where, then Jeremy cut out all the channels and boxes.

Finished subfloor in the living/dining room and windows!

At that point, Scott could start pulling wire through the floor.  Again, since we don't have a lot of interior walls and horizontal runs take routing, most of the main power runs have to go through the floor and then vertically up the exterior walls. All the floor runs also have to go in before we can finish putting down the subfloor which has to happen before we can do the rest of the wall framing and....you get the picture.

Wiring in the floor and taped to the walls

Marking the walls

Wire to the panel - the only actual normal framed wall section in the house....

While Scott was pulling wire, I started on a section of wall framing on the existing subfloor.  The studs are 2x4's on their side that are screwed into the garage doors and to each other to make a solid wall system.  The window makes the picture a little dark, but hopefully you can get the idea.

The first stud wall! 

The other thing that has to go in the floor is the gas line.  Luckily, we know a master pipe fitter who volunteered to do the line for us.  Thank you, Dan Saunders!

Installing the finished assembly

So that brings us to now.  We have a few more wire runs to go in the floor this weekend, then we'll start closing it up.  It's coming together!