My work on the farmhouse starts in earnest now.  the exterior will be closed up and secure by the end of the coming week and the framing crew has filled the building with wood, lots of wood. Most of my real work is still a few weeks way but I got started on the shop this weekend.

If you think of the 60’x80’ building as four quadrants, the residence is one , the garage is one, and the shop is one. That leave one for my “Happy Thought”. (More on that last bit another time). The building is broken up into bays, each of which is about 20 feel long. There are six bays that are not covered by the residence and I am responsible for framing and putting up walls. When it is all done, it will be about 140 feet of walls.

This weekend I got started by picking up 150 2×4’s and 5 pounds of nails. It took a little noodling to figure out how to frame the walls into the steel columns but eventually I got the measurements right and started framing. I expected I might be off on my calculations for the lumber but it turns out it was the nails – I ran out after only 4 out of 6 bays. I guess I will need another 5 lbs <oops>.

There are no lights in the building yet and sunrise and sunset won’t leave any available time during the week so I’ll have to wait until next weekend to finish my work.

In the picture, you will notice the steel crew started installing windows. they have two in the work area and two in the residence (the small one is at the kitchen sink and the farthest away is near the dining table … or more accurately, where those things will eventually go). The crew still needs to insulate around the windows and do some caulking but I can tell you one thing, while commercial windows may not be as esthetically pleasing as our Pella’s, these things are built to last and are very tight ! I’m sure once the framing is done and the sheetrock and painting is done, they will look more than nice enough.

One thing that will be very different is that the exterior walls in the residence will be 14” thick. I’ll build custom window sills since they will beg for plants on a “shelf” what wide.