Chapter 8: Topping it out

Six months earlier – in January 1981 – I thought I had crossed the biggest hurdle I would face building this house: the foundation.  After all, my project had even survived the embarrassment of a cement truck collapsing into the septic tank. But the challenges kept coming.

Topping out the structure proved to be the most difficult part of the entire endeavor. Had we only had scaffolding, a crane, or even some decent ladders.  But my bro. partner Billy and I had nothing but a lousy stepladder – and I couldn't afford to waste money on equipment. Everything was going into lumber purchases.

The Texas heat was unrelenting.  My Dad, who came out frequently to inspect progress, must have thought his sons were crazy. For some reason, most likely the heat, he seemed to lose confidence that we could finish building this roof. To escape the heat, and possibly to escape witnessing what he thought was a coming train wreck, Dominic went off to Hartford to visit his sister – and to cool off.

I felt a certain sense of freedom to proceed, without parental guidance, and it had the effect of making me stubborn and more determined than ever to get this house topped out.




The challenge:  Get the first few rafters started until the lumber, which was flapping in the wind, became self-supporting. We had no nail guns – every nail had to be pounded by hand, which was no easy task working off a wobbly stepladder.

Using geometry, I calculated the height that a 2x12 ridge-board should be placed above the floor to meet the tops of the rafters. Then we jury-rigged that ridge-board onto a couple of poles.

With all the pieces swaying above us, Billy and I somehow muscled the rafters up and nailed them into the ridge-board. After we attached half a dozen rafters, the structure seemed to hold itself up. With each rafter, the job became easier. We even figured out how to use our body weight and a rope to bend crooked boards into shape before nailing them.

 (Note that the ridge-board extends 4 feet beyond the end of the house.  That is for a roof overhang.)

With the confidence that comes with getting the first few rafters installed, Billy takes a break on the second floor.

This is me, on a clearly dangerous ladder-contraption. It allowed me to hang out over the front end of the house to attach the final rafters. We built all sorts of temporary contraptions like this, determined to git 'er done. Who needs proper equipment anyway?

This is an end-view of the structure, facing west. The long, elegant rafters are comprised of standard-length boards, spliced together over the upstairs "knee-walls." The upstairs bedrooms are half the width of the first floor.

Anne and Chris came out to see the framed roof. Chris won't remember – he was only 1 month old.

Decking the roof: Billy stands on a 2x4 "toe-board" as he pounds 8 penny nails through plywood sheathing. Where is his OSHA safety harness?

We ran full sheets of plywood over the front end of the roof and cut them off afterward. (I chalked a line and ran my circular saw from top to bottom for a clean, angled cut.)

Near disaster:  My job was to stand on the ground and tie each 4x8 plywood sheet onto a rope. Billy hoisted the sheets up and nailed them. But he let one get away, he shouted, and fortunately I ducked just before it slid down over my head.

Remnants of the "toe-boards" that we stood on as we worked our way up the steep roof to fasten the sheathing.  All of these had to be removed prior to the next step: tar-paper felt and asphalt shingles.

 

'The Dark Side of the Moon'

Attaching shingles to this massive roof was not going to be easy. Due to triple-digit July heat we would have to work at night. Not because we couldn't take the heat, but because the asphalt materials would become so soft that our feet rubbing against the shingles and toe-boards would scuff the roof and leave ugly black marks all over it.

My records show that I had $551.52 worth of roofing materials delivered on July 11, 1981.
Billy and I were delighted to get the help of our brother-in-law, Jimmy Long, to tackle this midnight project. We affixed spotlights to the roof ridge, set up a stereo, and balanced on the toe-boards for three nights while listening to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and other Classic Rock tunes. Most of the surrounding area consisted of empty lots, so we didn't have to worry about bothering any neighbors. We cranked the music up loud and made a star-party out of the roofing project.

We worked upward from the bottom edges, lapping asphalt-felt horizontally, then overlapping with shingles, each of which took four roofing nails. The triangular braces protruding from the walls (above) were temporary supports for scaffold-boards. We stood on the scaffolds and reached as high as we could as we rolled out the felt and nailed the shingles.  When we could reach no higher, we nailed toe-boards over the shingles and went higher.

Perhaps the fact that we were working in the dead of night made us fearless about falling. The ground below was quite dark, lessening any effects of vertigo.  That's probably just a stupid theory that I have now. The main thing is that we were in our early-to-mid twenties.  Keep in mind those famous last words uttered by many a Texan competing for a Darwin Award: "Hey y'all, watch this!"

After capping the summit with a ridge-cap of shingles, we carefully retraced our steps downward to remove each toeboard. We had nailed the toeboards right through the shingles into the roof, so as we removed them we carefully filled each nail hole with roofing cement to prevent water leaks.

Nary a scuff mark: The finished roof basks in the triple-digit Texas heat, which helps the bottom edge of each self-sealing shingle stick down nicely for a good seal. In the subsequent 7 years that we lived in this house we never had a leak. And over those years we enjoyed our share of Texas thunderclappers of Biblical proportion.  Sure, the steep 16/12 roof pitch helped all the water roll off, but our work was perfect. 

(Note in the photo, above, that as we worked our way up we had to work flashing around the plumbing vent pipes on the roof.  That was just one more of many challenges working on a steep roof in the dark.) 

The front end of house rests atop a relatively steep hill, making the highest point almost 30 feet off the ground.

With the roof completed, I now had a giant shed. From this point forward I could store materials in this "shed" without fear of water damage.

 

To be continued . . .

 

Chapter 9:  Closing it in.

 

CHAPTER 7 . . . Framing a house stick-by-stick

In the early days of June, 1981, the house began to rise.  Central Texas was drying out from the first of two violent floods.  Between the storms, and in the week prior to the birth of our son, Chris, I began assembling the first wall horizontally on the floor of the slab (the far wall in the first picture below).

A McCoy's building supply truck delivered the first order of lumber on June 3. My records indicate I spent $680.92 for this initial load of framing materials.

I remember making multiple mistakes as I misread the blueprints – probably because I was nervous about making mistakes. I recall that building the first wall involved almost as much destruction, redoing and swearing as it involved actual constructive progress. It took me twice as long as any other. Anne provided moral support as she sat in the shade and watched me struggle. She tells me now that she had absolute confidence that I knew what I was doing, but I suspect her mind was mostly on childbirth – which was only days away.

I had no immediate plans how to lift the wall into place once I had built it, other than wait for friends and family to help me.

The wall across the far back – my first – had three window openings and one door opening. I used 2x6 studs on 24" centers on all the outside walls so that I could use extra-thick (R19) insulation inside the walls.

How did I lift the wall into place? My cousin Cherri's husband, Michael, came out one day and offered to help me muscle that first wall into place. He also helped me frame a portion of the second wall (on the right in the photo above.)

June 12, 1981:  Our little bundle of joy, Chris, was born, bringing a temporary halt to the construction project. When these photos were taken two days after his birth, we could not have imagined that within a couple of years the little guy would be following me around the construction site with a 22 oz. framing hammer, refusing to play with plastic toy versions of tools. Not yet able to form real words, he called the hammer "nuh-nuh" – and learned how to drive nails as a toddler. 



This is a view of the first two walls, propped up with braces. But the real point of this photo concerns the guy pictured at right:  my brother Billy, who finally arrived home from college to help me frame the rest of the house.  What a relief to have Billy there!  Thus began our 12-hour summer workdays.



Within about a week of Billy's arrival, the two of us managed to frame the outer walls and start connecting them with interior, supporting walls.

On summer break from his forestry studies at Stephen F. Austin State University, Billy quickly became adept at a different form of lumberjacking. Above, he secures the top wall plate over a massive header that we built on the ground. The header provides upward support so that the kitchen and dining/living space all remain open to each other.



Once we completed the lower supporting walls, the second floor was relatively straighforward. The blueprints for the house, a modified A-frame, called for the upper floor to be 13 feet wide, exactly half the width of the concrete slab (26 feet).  Above and below:  We used 2x10's for floor joists – on 16" centers – with cross-bracing every four feet.    



The roof takes shape:

Prior to this project I had had little experience reading and interpreting architectural blueprints. As mentioned in an earlier post, Anne and I purchased these house plans from a New Jersey architect. Mr. Chirgotis, the brains behind the plans, specified that the steep roof would be framed with 2x8 rafters  24 feet long. Well, anyone who has visited a modern lumber store in the last half century knows that finding any piece of lumber 24 feet long is next to impossible.  Imagine: That's almost the height of a wooden telephone pole!

I did some research and quickly found that a special order of about 50 rafters of the specified length would cost a small fortune. Such lumber would have to come from very tall, straight trees in the Pacific Northwest.



 Thus began some improvisation:   I decided to build the roof by splicing together shorter rafters, overlapping them – and using the 2nd-floor "knee walls" for support. So instead of single 24-foot rafters, I spliced together standard, off-the-floor pieces to get the required length.

Using geometry and a builder's T-square, I calculated where to notch each board to rest over the short "knee walls." After making a master rafter that fit perfectly, I traced the pattern onto all the other pieces of 2x8.  I then proceeded to saw, and saw, and saw – while Billy did most of the nailing.  As I recall, installing all these lower rafters took us a week, maybe even 10 days. Note, also, that we installed "bird blocks" horizontally where the rafters crossed the lower walls.

Front view: Most of the lower rafter pieces are now nailed into place. Note that the 2nd-floor joists are cantilevered beyond the front of the house.  This will form the floor of an upper, outside balcony.

The upstairs triangular areas on the left and right are attic crawl spaces. We created these by nailing 2x6 joists outward from the upstairs floor to each rafter. These joists also created a ceiling downstairs and made the entire structure rigid.

OMG! We didn't use the term back then, but I remember at this stage of the framing having some cold-sweat nightmares that a gust of wind came along and blew the whole dern thing over.

Rear view: With the lower roof section complete, it was now time to figure out how to top out the house.

 Chapter 8 preview:




Building this steep roof was among the most difficult parts of the 1980-88 project. Once we had the roof constructed, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had gained absolute confidence that no future hurdle would stop me from eventually finishing this house.



CHAPTER 6 . . . The Quarrymen

In April 1981, a quirky sidebar to the project

Paul Yemma (left), and Mark Sims (right), take turns helping me operate a 90-lb. jack hammer.

  

While designing the concrete foundation in 1980, I realized that the hillside grade of the lot would cause the front-door inset to be quite high off the ground. 

Anticipating the eventual need to build a concrete porch so high off the ground, I built a "slab key" into the forms before pouring the concrete in January. (The "slab key" is the slotted inset, left, with all the rebar protruding out of it. The basic idea is to build another small concrete slab that ties into this slot to form the porch floor.)

Once all the forms were removed, I came to the realization that if I were to dig down a little deeper, I could create usable storage space beneath the porch. The room could also be used as a tornado shelter, and it came in handy for that purpose during a bad set of thunderstorms in the mid-1980s.

Of course, digging through limestone is easier said than done.

The foundation inset for the front-door and porch.

Above and below:  The Quarrymen, Paul Yemma and Mark Sims, rocking to the scratchy sound of AM radio and a compressor as they took their licks on a 90 lb. jackhammer.

As good as it gets: digging though Texas Hill Country limestone.

Archeological dig? Once the hole was deep enough, I built "suspended forms" that allowed the first batch of concrete to flow into a contiguous, seamless block that formed the floor and lower walls. My hope was that the seamless concrete would help repel water seepage, but that proved futile. A few years later I was forced to put a drain in the floor.  My sister, Mary, told me that the project looked like an "archeological dig."

Above and below:  A maze of forms, removed to reveal a bathtub-like foundation for the underground storage room.

Hard mileage on the Vega:  Since I didn't have a truck, I improvised to carry these sheets of particle board. Plywood would have been a more desirable material to use in constructing the forms (below), but I was on an extremely tight budget.

Creating a "bunker":  This cube of particle board forms the inner walls and ceiling of the store room. The rebar ties into the "slab key" slot at left.

All formed up: With the outer walls in place, this little project was now ready for concrete. The top will be the front porch.  Below, a storage room.

Late May, 1981:  Brother Billy and Jimmy Long came out and helped me mix 44 batches of concrete in the electric mixer to complete the "cube." Just as we were finishing, a massive thunderstorm rolled across the job site and we took shelter in the tool-storage shed / temporary bathroom.  The storm was but a preview of two massive systems that would roll through Austin a few weeks later causing flooding and death.

With the concrete partially cured, we removed the outer forms to reveal the cube. As for the timbers and forms supporting cube's ceiling, I left them in place longer to make sure the concrete reached its full strength. (It takes about 28 days for concrete to fully cure.)

In the background, Billy works on removing forms. It was about this time that he named this underground storage room "The Pig Hole."

Clearing brush: Not having had quite enough fun with mixing 44 loads of concrete, Jimmy and Billy returned with a chainsaw to remove the scrub cedar and poison ivy. (As for the latter, they only discovered that they had cleared it a few days later – much to their discomfort!)

What do you do with the brush? Well, of course: You build a bonfire. The boys built this one so high that the flames singed an old overhead phone cable. Fortunately, it was an abandoned cable.

Final days of spring: With the approach of June – the month that would see walls begin to rise – some final preparations included rough landscaping. I had some loads of "sandy loam" delivered from the Colorado River bottoms (below).

Sneak Preview of Chapter 7: Framing the house 

Using 16-penny nails made in Poland, Billy attaches the top plate of a kitchen wall. The large header creates an open space for a bar seating area.  Why Polish nails?  Because that's what they sold in bulk at McCoy's.  They were quality fasteners, but every time we bent one there was some kind of joke made about them.

CHAPTER 5 – Spring, 1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Regrouping, and planning for the summer

For seven months I had worked toward the singular goal of constructing a strong foundation for our home. With that foundation finally planted in January, I experienced the euphoria of a major accomplishment.

More importantly, I experienced a huge feeling of relief that I could slow down, regroup – and simply think things through.

As the concrete cured in January and February, I was into the project to the tune of $9129.43, about a third of which was the cost of the land. In addition to a big 'ol block of concrete, I also had a caved-in septic tank to repair and a number of other projects to tackle before the summer-1981 push to frame the house.

The first order of business following the concrete-

truck mishap was to fashion a new concrete lid

for the septic tank. Fortunately, the tank had

never been used – it was clean and dry.

Above: I designed a temporary support system

of small pieces of wood that could easily be

removed through a hatch – once the new concrete

lid had cured.

Not the least of these spring projects was the successful completion of my second year of teaching journalism at Travis High School. Spring was the frantic season of completing the yearbook and competing in scholastic contests, along with publishing the monthly student newspaper . . .

. . . Oh, and I had one more spring project! Our child was on the way – I was to become a father in June.

This is a photo of Anne and my Mom, Lee, in a field of Texas bluebonnets about three months before Anne gave birth to Chris.

As corny as it sounds, we were building a home for our new 1981 family.

All of the wood for this project was recycled from the slab foundation forms. These planks are supported by the posts shown in the first photo.  The box-like structure forms the "hatch." These square forms were designed to create a portal through the concrete that would allow me to crawl down into the tank and remove all the supporting wood – once the concrete had cured.

In addition to providing access to haul all this wood out of the tank, the hatch would also allow for future septic pumping/cleanout when necessary.

A wider view of the septic-tank forms with square "hatch."

I placed plastic sheeting over the wood forms prior to installing rebar.  This would make it easier for me to remove the forms from below once the concrete had cured.  The sloped indentation in the center was designed to provide extra support to the back-side wall of the tank, which was slightly bowed by the cement-mixer truck that caved into it in January. 

On the left side: At the last minute, I came up with a brilliant idea.: install plumbing for a temporary toilet to be used during construction.   I would need to build a tool shed, anyway, so why not build the temporary shed directly over this tank and put a potty on it?

My Dad helped me mix the concrete.  In the foreground you can barely see the top of the square wooden "hatch" that would provide a portal to beneath.

This is the flange and water-supply pipe for the temporary tool-shed toilet.

Anne checks out the work on the new septic-tank lid.

Recycling wood like crazy: I built the toolshed using some of the same boards that began their journey on the walls of Perry Rose Firestone in Downtown Austin – sometime the mid-20th Century.  When they tore down that tire dealership in 1980, I bought a load of scrap wood and hauled it to the lot.  My friend Dave Mosteller came out one afternoon and helped me pull all the nails out of the planks.

These boards went from the walls of the tire dealership to become the formwork on this slab foundation. Then I recycled them again for the septic forms; and finally, for this toolshed.

The toolshed with some paint.  In the foreground, scrap-lumber fire.

This was the first delivery of "sandy loam," a soil that comes from dredging the Colorado River bottoms east of Austin.   In future years, such deliverys of dirt were sometimes big events for my son, Chris, his cousins Zach and Adam, and neighborhood kids.  They would spend endless hours sculpting the mound with toy trucks, building tunnels, and generally amusing themselves in those early 1980s days of no electronic gadgets, no Internet.  Just good, clean dirt!

Later in the 1980s, fire ants decided that they just loved building their beds in this sandy loam.

The hatch.  I crawled down into the tank and removed all the supporting formwork for the septic-tank lid through this portal.

A view of the toolshed/potty with an authoritative no-trespass sign.  Part of my Texas birthright! Actually, the sign was meant to deter some of the neighborhood kids from vandalizing things. Shortly after I poured the slab, some kids spray painted graffitti onto the side of it.

Though the photo is a bit fuzzy, I believe this is my brother Billy, who came out to survey the operations while on a break from Stephen F. Austin State. He wanted to see exactly what he was getting into. In a few months he would partner up with me on our 2-man framing crew.

Sneak Preview:  Below, ten years later.   Chris, flanked by cousins Adam and Zach, helped me build these backdoor steps in August 1991.  Having lived in California since 1988, the long-distance hassles of trying to manage this property became too much. We finally came to the conclusion that it was best to sell the house and buy into the California real estate market.

Zach and Adam lived in Urbana, Illinois, but were in Austin for a summer visit.  To reward them for their hard work on the steps, I took them to breakfast at Jims on Highway 71 in Oak Hill.   Mmmmm.

Above:  Adam, Chris, and Zach, who finally graduated from "Transformers" to real tools!

Below: The news steps, and lovely live oak trees, in 1991.

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 6:  "The Quarrymen"