Wow.

I'd been wondering how James gets these joists upstairs by himself.  I knew it involved the roof, a window, and lots of muscle. I caught him getting one upstairs. Thought you might like to see...

the joist is propped up against the side of the house

he CLIMBS up the joist to the roof

...lifts the joist up...

...sends it through the window...

...then climbs through and smiles for the camera.
What a man...

A sweet surprise!

I came home Saturday about noon and saw a very happy man in my entryway.  That's right -- James was smiling, something that doesn't happen often during this process...

He had started about 10am tearing out the sheet rock in preparation for getting another beam in place -- another MAJOR beam.  He assumed he would encounter some unexpected fun, but it turned out to be just what he was hoping for -- simple!  Uncle Dane came over JUST IN TIME to lend a helping muscle or two to get THIS into place...

WOW!  THANK YOU, Dane, for your help.  That put us quite a bit ahead of schedule! James quickly got the rest patched up, and cleaned up. Then it was time to move on to more joists -- which were now being secured to this beam. Are you lost yet?

See that metal piece? That's a "hanger."  And the weight of the joist is sitting in the hanger attached to the beam. Crazy, huh?  Here's another view of the beam...

Monstrous, I say. And here's my man, playing Twister on the joists...

By the end of the day on Sunday, the braces downstairs were GONE!  8 joists in place.  Moving on to the kitchen joists. 

P.S.  Uncle Dane ALSO helped James carry SIX huge sheets of plywood upstairs Friday night.

THANK YOU! 

More HVAC fun

Ducting, ducting, ducting. 

Currently, since James had to head to a meeting for work, the end of these ducts are on the dining room floor, treating us to some nice cold air! 

2 steps forward, 16 steps back

It's been one of those days around here...
James put his HVAC knowledge to work today, re-routing ducting around an upcoming joist.  Early in the morning, it looked like things were going to go quickly.  He measured, got the pieces together, and hoisted it into place...

But then,  he moved it into place and something popped apart -- a joint, which was not supposed to come apart.  Awesome...

After we fixed that (and I do mean "we" -- it took both of us working like crazy!), we put it back up and then IT HAPPENED AGAIN...

At this point, we're just peachy, but with some patience and teamwork, we got it into place, all the way to the vent.

So, next up was putting in the joist, BUT when we got it in place, we realized we had failed to notice that the WALL was MISSING where the joist was supposed to sit.  That's right, the joist was sitting only on sheet rock. For some UNKNOWN reason, the framers had left a gap in the walls and then covered it with sheet rock. Awesome.  So, James had to cut into our sheet rock and complete the wall...

What a man...  By the end of the day, 5 joists were in place.  And we went on a DATE!!  The perfect ending to a rather stressful day!

Aren't they pretty???

(a note: these joists are 18 feet long, but the pictures only show about 4 feet of them!)

JOISTS!!!

Well, the first TJI joist is in -- I really need to figure out what that stands for. I've also heard James say "LVL" and "I-beam".  Well, whatever it is, it's in!  (The first of many)

It required a little more support prep work...

some muscles...

and it's in!

BEAUTIFUL!!

James JoistWalker

Well, James has gotten just about all of the floor off upstairs, has removed several joists, and is ready to start cutting into the ceiling.  YAY!  It's a good thing this crazy man has 15 years experience walking rafters up in the air.  He's going to have to do a lot of balancing to avoid coming through the ceiling!

And the mess begins...

Wait, I know, you're thinking, "What do you mean it 'begins'?"  Yes, we live in a mess, but yesterday was a mess like no other. We started by removing furniture and draping the rest.  We even used a handy sheet to prevent the dust from heading down the hall.

Next came the fan...

supervised closely by Gwyn...

Next came some additional draping (and a little scaring...)

Then the destruction began...

When it was all said and done (for the day), we've got a nice hole in the living room ceiling...

AND, a giant mess (which my good man cleaned up quite thoroughly!)

Now, our coughing has subsided for a while, and we've moved on... More tomorrow...