Post date: Jun 30, 2015 12:48:58 AM
Tomorrow we plan to raise the porch roof. That meant a lot of preparation today (and earlier). Now we have all the materials: 10x12” beams, corner post, vigas (round rafters), corbels, and rough-sawn decking.
I fetched the vigas last week, and had the corbels cut. The sawmill gave me a corner post that was too small, so Eli swapped that today. We got the beams and decking last week, and I sanded these to removed excess fuzz. But the rain we had last Friday raised the grain again, so the beams had to be resanded. I am not strong enough to flip the big beam by myself, so that had to wait ’til this morning.
I collected the steel base plate for the post from the iron works, then primed and painted it. It will keep moisture from the porch floor from migrating into the wooden post and rotting it.
Eli cut the lap joint for the corner corbel and cut the beam to size. He also tapered the post from 10” diameter over most of the length to 8” diameter at the top, using an electric plane. That was slick.
He is renting a hoist — the kind used to lift an automobile engine — so we can position the big beam safely. We will wait to cut the post to height by using the laser level. While Eli was working on the porch structure preparation, Gabriel (who was sick, but still worked) and Jake put the waterproofing over the top of the parapets.
Meanwhile the plumbers were here all day. They drilled more holes in the studs, ran much of the water lines, and installed the shower valve. The in-wall toilet tank is here, so they will install that tomorrow. (That will be a big help, because we have delayed a little bit of wall framing until we knew exactly where that tank would be located.) Because they drilled more holes there was more wood chips on the floor, so I vacuumed and cleaned up after everyone left today.