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.