Over the past two weekends we've been working pretty hard to get a good stable roof over our heads and this weekend we finished it! Side Note: We only did as far as the roof joists and sheathing. We're 99% sure we're going to have a professional do the tar paper and shingles for a few reasons:
We're on a pretty short deadline to get watertight and we don't really have the time to give to the roof.
Mr. Nick won't let me on the steep incline for long periods of time to help him because he says I'm dangerous. I told him, "Ha! I laugh in the face of danger" and he replied, "No, you laugh as danger's hitting you in the face."
We're not professionals and, let's face it, this is our roof.
Did I mention how steep it is?
The roof in general was a big task, one that I was mildly de-motivated by on the first day (we used 2"x6"x24' for our roof joists, just getting them from the ground to the top was a big task, not to mention cutting two bird's mouths and two angles out of each of them). But, then Mr. Nick told me to just think of it as 16" at a time (the distance between roof joists) and that helped a lot. Either way. Here's the big steps.
Hurricane ties on both the tops of the walls and the tops of the beams.
We made these little "bird houses" in order to make sure our roof joists all lined up properly. There is a bird house on each side sandwiching the 2"x4"x24's. 16" at time ...
Finished! That's our cute little shed dormer poking out the side (the only part I was allowed to nail the sheathing on top of). The rest Mr. Nick did, isn't he amazing!?
Almost any building has eaves to keep the water off the exterior walls. Here's our simple step by step process for how we built the two gable eaves (one gable eave = two of the lookout sections below) that are going on our barn (roofing video to come soon I promise).
You'll use three of the same 2"x6"xwhatever you used for all your other roof joists. (We used 2"x 6"x 24' that we special ordered). Measure out your 2"x4" spacing every 3'.
Clamp your three boards together so that the ends of the 2"x6"s line up.
Transfer your mark from the center board across all three boards. You'll want to trace in the outline for where your 2"x4"s will go
Here's a closer look.
Set your circular saw to 1 1/2" which is the thickness of a 2"x4"
Cut in the lines. To see a video demonstration of Mr. Nick doing this, click here.
Here is what it will look like once you've done your "lines" with the circular saw.
Knock out your chunks. You can use a chisel to get out any stubborn pieces.
This is what it will look like.
Lay your 2"x4"s in the spaces. We cut them to 33 1/2". Nail the first row only.
Measure on your 2"x4" marks at 16" and 32". You have to do this on every 2"x4".
Make your way down the row again, lining up the second notches.
Here is an example of how it lines up.
Finish up with the last row.
Make sure your 2"x4"s are recessed in as your roofing material will lay on top of this.
Finished product. Now you have to get it on the roof. More of that in our roofing post to come.
I'm a bit behind posting about these floor joists but I have a good excuse ... Mr. Nick needed some video game time. I know, I know, you wouldn't expect a burly man like Mr. Nick to also find enjoyment in the simple act of playing video games but it's true, he loves them. And I personally don't mind it either. I have a theory ... I think when you are as high strung as he is (where his brain is CONSTANTLY thinking, over-analyzing, etc. etc. etc.) it's good to have true down time where he decompresses and lets his thoughts turn to mush. It can only be good for his blood pressure and stress level, right?
But, I've managed to get the computer while he's working out the figures for our roof so now we're back on track!
After you've measured your spacing increments, throw up your joist hangars (side note, on our first course of joists we actually used the little tackers to put them in place until we could get both sides done, then once we were sure they were exactly across from each other we nailed them in, by the time we got to the last bay we felt confident enough to secure them immediately).
Here they are all lined up, like "little soldiers" in Mr. Nick's words.
Once your joist hangars are up on both sides measure the distance in between. It's not uncommon with a post and beam barn for the joist distances to vary slightly with each increment but you can make it up with your joists by either cutting bigger than you need to push it out or smaller than you need and securing it.
Measure your joists. We ended up cutting about 8" off the 12' joist for the center course but then Mr. Nick had the great idea to get 23' joists that we were able to get two joists out of for the right and left side. The hassle of hauling the extra long joists was worth the $80 in savings (hey it all adds up right?)
Here's how Mr. Nick uses the triangle to cut a straight line, every time. See how he lines up his skill saw with the line and then butts up the triangle.
The skillsaw was just a tad shallow so instead of ripping the bits off and potentially causing splinters he ran the good ol' hand saw down the line once for a clean break (this is one of the extra long joists, notice how the only waste is the section in the middle)
Handsome Mr. Nick securing his joist hangars ...
Mostly done, a side note. We both work full time jobs so most of the materials are delivered while we're at work. We didn't have time to count and make sure the lumber yard delivered everything before the weekend and then so we found out at the end of the day on Saturday that they had shorted us 50 joist hangars. Because it wasn't a big box store they weren't open on Sunday and we had to wait until Monday to get the rest of our materials, a little frustrating but a pretty painless way to learn a very important lesson, always make sure you are delivered exactly what you paid for!
