Back-blogging: Beam me up

[What with Internet weirdness up here I am throwing some stuff on here and hoping to add pictures later.  AT & T was supposed to install yesterday, between 8 and 12, but a couple of guys showed up a day early and didn't actually announce themselves to me or to Dale (who was painting in the cottage) so I have no idea what is up.  ] [Edited when I got back to Berkeley]

Tuesday was a productive day: I made a template so I could put in the splint in the ledger to bypass the electrical and vent pipes to the left of the front door--for the patch to fit properly you have to accommodate the heads of the bolts and washers, which I accomplished by stapling a piece of contractor's paper over the section, and rubbing a pencil over it to show where the various bolts were.  Then I lay this piece of paper over the patch section, drilled holes through it, and then flipped the patch over so that my openings would line up (and yes, in the past I have forgotten that step, and made a useless mirror image when I tried to place a patch). 

Once Tom arrived with the last beam, an 18-footer that was pretty damned heavy, we could lay it on the inner post line and confirm whether my cuts were correct.  I had to make one more adjustment, but then by the time we had a late lunch we were stoked to have all the beams in place. After lunch we both blasted away on connectors: Tom laid out the remaining joist hangers to accept the first of the long joists (a few of which will hit both beams, as we'd planned), and I filled in the dozens and dozens of Simpson screw fasteners on the column bases and post caps.  I also tightened all the big bolts in the ledger, working both inside and outside with the ratchet wrench and completing what should be a very solid and strong attachment to the house.

Because we still have a few more things to do on the cripple wall (like cutting holes for and attaching the vents) that would be much more difficult to accomplish once all the joists are up, we held off on that phase until we could roll them all out at once and then no longer have to navigate on the dirt.  I find this is where Tom's experience really helps, as I don't always see the smoothest use of time, and do things in a non-optimal sequence. 

One very satisfying aspect of having the beams firmly located is that we could designate the double joist that will mark the start of the stairs.  Because we didn't have a super-accurate drawing to work from (too many variables for my drafting skills), there was some question about this aspect, but we have assured ourselves now of a level and plumb baseline from which to run the template stair-stringer and minimize excavation / filling down below.  We'll have two more double joists, one at each edge of the house, so as to establish a beefy perimeter. 

We had to go into Pt Reyes Station and buy four more 12' joists and about eleven more 18 footers, at which point we could able to finish this phase of the construction, pretty much right on the estimated time.  It won't be done until we run the blocking out along the beam and at mid-span.  I found that the first bit of blocking always takes unexpectedly long, and then one remembers the moves and things go way faster. 

Here's the fruits of that killer day of work.  Next up is to move some tools down to a work area for Muggs near the lower door so he can figure out the optimum layout for the stairs, little landing, and lower stairs.  While he does that, I un-tarp the pile I left on the badminton court, and will begin de-nailing and milling the redwood we salvaged from the old deck, in hopes of reclaiming enough to cover most of the area. 

I can hardly wait to start laying out deck boards, as that really marks a significant amount of work already done.  That said, it's deceptive, since there's a lot of stuff still to do, like railings, benches, and so on.