On February 25th at Exactly 10:51 A.M..........

We finished putting the last wall SIP into place!!!

Technically, there are the dormer sides and the peak SIP on the great room, but they will not be put into place until stick framing is all but complete on the east wall of the great room. Much of the aspen will need to be in place prior to installing the dormer SIP's.

It took us 11 weeks to get this far, but only about 19 days of actual work went on in those 11 weeks. And a total of 63 panels were put in place.

Also, this weekend, we spent time going over windows for the great room. We are not necessarily ready to order them but we need the rough opening dimensions to start framing the great room wall. My wife has come up with the best combination of windows thus far. In fact, her design is what we will probably end up using.

We even managed to get started on installing plate material for the bump out roof. In addition, we got the roof SIP's for this area hauled up to the house and ready to start prepping them.

We also have found some homes in the area that have siding and metal roofs that we are possibly going to go with.

This siding is ship lap cedar siding and comes pre-stained. We like the weathered look of

this stain, and also the fact that it comes pre-stained which will help save time.

We have been really struggling with roof material. We both very much would like to go with a slate roof but cost is very high as well as installation time would be lengthy. Another house nearby has a metal roof that we may consider. We both really like the color and we would like to go with a standing seam style roof. Also, the added snow fence is a nice added feature for saving the rain gutters in a heavy snow.
We continue sealing the T&G aspen which we will soon be starting to apply. We have about four hundred boards completed thus far, with several hundred left.

So now we start the roof SIP's. That count....71!!

We are Closing In !!

We're on the final wall SIP's!

Another good weekend weather wise, and again a lot was accomplish-ed. This, after a week that brought a six inch snow fall to the area, however not much of that even remains.

We finally got the kitchen corner closed up this weekend. We had to do a little bit of shimming on the SIP's at the corner. This went extremely well but was time consuming; along with the usual lengthy prep on the SIP's (cutting around the floor joist beams and dropping them in from the top.)

Approximately five more wall SIP's remain. As I mentioned earlier, the opening for the front entrance and the upstairs balcony will have some stick framing in conjunction with the SIP's.

Next weekend our hopes are to finish the wall SIP's as well as confirm window sizes for the east side of the great room so that stick framing for this wall can begin.

We also hope to get under way with some of the roofing components. Our current plan is to start installing the roof on the bump out on the west side of the house. This was the area that had the custom cut SIP's.

Here are a few more photos from this past weekend.

We Have Started the Front!

Another productive weekend along with warmer weather made things really go well this weekend.

We finished the last panel on the great room right away Saturday morning and then turned our attention to the front of the house. I have not really been looking forward to this part due to the fact that there are a lot of obstacles to contend with.

First off, my initial concern was that I would not have enough lift with the Skytrak to get the panels raised high enough over the front bent and drop the panels in from the top. Fortunately, I think we will be OK and have the needed height.

Second, there is a fair amount of prep work needed on the SIP's themselves to sit over the oak floor joists that help tie the very front bent to the second bent, as well as the angle cut for the roof. It is nothing complicated, just a lot of time consuming steps for each panel. But I can honestly say we got a very good start, and it seems to be going very smoothly.

On my wife's suggestion, we plan on handling the upper SIP's a little different than we had originally thought. We more than likely will have French doors leading out to the balcony on the front. At this time, we are thinking of eliminating the two vertical SIP's that would basically be wasted to fill this spot, leave enough room to stick frame the rough opening for the doors, and run a couple of SIP's horizontally to fill the remaining area to the peak above the French doors. This will more than likely save us a couple of SIP's that may be used later on for a small pump house for the water pump and pressure tank.

Work also now can begin on stick framing the east face of the great room now that the final SIP on the north wall has been put into place. We still need to get the rough openings for these windows, but I think we have it pretty well nailed down as to the size and location of these windows.

As I had mentioned, the plan here is to also use a couple of SIP's and place them horizontally to fill in the upper portion of the bent. The thought here was with all of the windows, and their large size on this side, SIP material would just go to waste.

After this week with what we have accomplished as well as the minor changes that we made , I think we have fallen below the ten SIP mark!!!

A Productive Weekend

Nice weather and the fact that I think we are finally getting a rhythm down made for what we thought was a very productive weekend.

We worked on the corner SIP's for the great room and dining room right away Saturday morning. This required us first to put down a sill plate for the north wall of the great room. Again, as on all of the inside corners, we needed to back cut a panel forming a pocket so the adjoining SIP could fit into it. I must say, we have been having good luck on our corners coming out nice and tight, with very little if any messing around with fitting the SIP into place.





Our countdown continues with 15 wall SIP's left. We are down to one panel on the north side of the great room wall. The open part of the great room which you can see in the picture will be stick framed due to all of the windows that will be installed on this wall.

I also included some early morning pictures. Although it is getting lighter a little bit earlier we generally are started long before the sun is up on the weekends.

Although our stacks of wall SIP's are dwindling, this photo shows just some of what awaits us as far as roof SIP's.

In my last post I mentioned that I had been training to repel down into the Grand Canyon. I managed to get some of the photos of us training about a week and a half ago. Although it is far from repelling off a canyon wall it gives us a chance to check our rigging, technique, and equipment.