The Loft

The Loft

     Now that the framing was complete and the inspection passed, I wanted to get started on wiring. In order to run the wiring, I needed to be able to work in the loft, so it needed a sub-floor.

 

Standing in the loft

     I put down ¾ inch OSB subfloor, and once I had the first sheet in place and could stand in the loft, I was pleasantly surprised at how roomy the loft was. The decision to build 10 foot walls instead of 8 foot walls really paid off!

   

    Winter days are shorter, and it was getting dark very soon after I got out of work each day. The plan was to work on wiring after work each evening, and to start getting the shingles on the roof whenever I had good weather on the weekends. Good plan……

Finishing up the Framing

Finishing up the Framing

     With the porch framing finished, I moved inside to construct the interior walls. Once done with the interior walls, I could call for the framing inspection.

     The first wall runs through the center of the cabin from one end to the other. This is a load-bearing (loft) wall and has two door openings, one for the bathroom and one for the bedroom. Once that was in place, I framed the wall that divided the bathroom and the bedroom. The last bit of vertical framing was a short wall for the shower and the closet in the bedroom.

Bedroom

     Once I finished up with the vertical walls, I still had to install the floor joists for the loft. The loft will cover the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. Our plan is to use the area above the kitchen and bathroom as a sleeping loft, and to use the area above the bedroom for storage.

Bathroom

Loft Joists

     I was able to meet the building inspector the day he came, and was given a list of a few things that needed to be added. First, I had to add hurricane ties to the roof rafters. This was no big deal and only took about an hour. The next issue was that I had used screws to attach the floor joist hangers. The problem was that the screws were not shear rated, so I crawled under the cabin, backed out one screw at a time and replaced it with a shear rated nail. Not and expensive fix, but time consuming and a pain in the neck! The last, and most irritating requirement was that I needed to add deck tensioners to the front porch. The tensioners were about $45 and only took about ½ hour to install, but my porch is only 4 feet wide!

     Once I had made the repairs, I called for a re-inspection and the inspector signed off. Now on to the wiring!

The Porch Roof

The Porch Roof

    The next order of business is to get the roof onto the porch. I know it isn’t a very big porch, but it is a porch, and we enjoy sitting on it, so it needs a roof. On our first rendering of the cabin, we had 8 foot walls and the roof from the cabin just extended down over the porch. When we changed to 10 foot walls, I didn’t think it would look right, so we decided on a shed style roof.

    Four 6x6 posts will support the roof (over-kill). Each one was cut to length and then notched at the top to allow the doubled 2x8 carrier beam to sit flush across it.

    

     I added a header to the side of the cabin, and then went to work laying out my rafters. Once the rafters were laid out and cut, it was just a matter of nailing them in place.

    I’m going to hold off for a bit on the plywood so that I can access the soffit easier. After I close in the soffit, I’ll add the plywood and roofing to the porch roof.

~Terry

Wrapping It Up

Wrapping It Up

            We now have a roof! One of our goals is to have the roof on (which it is), have the house wrap on, and have the windows and door in by the end of October. At this point, we are feeling like we are going to hit that goal. The only thing that might come up short is having all of the windows in. We decided on double hung insulated window which are going to cost a bit more than the single hung windows we had first looked at.

            We had some of the sheathing already on the cabin, but had to get it all in place so we could get the house wrap on. So we went to work getting everything closed in. My friend Anthony came out and gave me a hand getting the sheathing on the gable ends up, and it went very quickly. Another bonus is that with the sheathing in place, we could install the front door (which we already had) and be able to secure some tools. This means no more hauling tons of tools back and forth!

            We decided that it would be easier to cut out the window openings before we put up the house wrap. This way, as we slowly purchased windows, we can simply cut the house wrap and install the window.

All that was left for this project was to wrap the house up like a Christmas gift.

Now on to the next project……..getting the front porch roof framed out.

~Terry