A Ceiling Feeling

As usual, things are going great, if a little slow. I arrived at a couple steps I simply couldn't do alone and was so fortunate to find help nearby. I'm not so great at asking for help, I don't enjoy doing it, but come to find out it's a really excellent way to get help!

My ridge beam is in place and I spent a good portion of today cutting rafters. What an exciting step this is; I couldn't keep a giant smile off my face each time I looked up to the sky and saw that big ol' board spanning the entire twenty four foot length of my roof, plus four feet.

Tony Pemberton, good neighbor and carpenter extraordinaire, came over this morning and acted like it was no big deal to just throw it up there. I think part of the reason it's so gratifying to have the ridge beam up is because it's such a challenging step to consider until it's done. I wasn't even sure the two of us would be able to do it and I was considering the different ways we could rig a ladder on top of scaffolding so we could both climb up while holding this board that must weigh a couple hundred pounds. Then Tony said, "No, we'll just set it on top of the window there and then climb up there and set it in place."

And that's exactly what we did. I got up there on top of the window, my feet about 20 feet from the ground below, shaky with nervousness, keenly aware that I was just one badly nailed board from death. My breath rate and heart rate increased proportionally to the loss of strength in my legs as I edged toward anxiety. Knowing well this was no time to be like, "Um, I'm scared. Can we take a wimp-out break?" I found the inner voice to say instead, "OK Jon Wheeler. Don't think; DO!" So I wrapped my leg around the post as Tony suggested, squatted down with the other leg, grabbed the board, and lifted with all my might. Tony, facing me, did the same and we heaved it, a little at a time, into place. None of my boards turned out to be badly nailed, and no one died. With the end in place, we were all done... except that we had to go to the other end and do it all again. We got it done though, and once I got down and shook out all the heeby-jeebies, I felt very accomplished.

Tony spent a good deal of time helping me get one rafter cut properly so I could use it as a pattern to cut the rest. I spent the rest of the day working on that project and now I have eight rafters (about half what I need total) ready to nail in. Tony said he'd come by tomorrow and help me get some set in place.

Nathan Harper, another good neighbor who is married to Tony's daughter Sharayah, helped me get the beam up to the top of my walls a couple days ago on Saturday. After framing in the window and erecting the ridge post by myself on the east end of the house, it was really wonderful to have help. In this first photo, I'm using a level to plumb the window on the west end of the house on the gable end. Nathan helped me frame this window, put it in place on top of the wall, and put the post up after that. He was also a handy photographer! After we got it in place, I seriously couldn't remember how I'd done the other one alone.

Here's looking up toward the west peak from the main floor below.

Yesterday I was working alone again so I cut out the OSB from my windows. This was where I got the ceiling feeling. Cutting the windows really changed the atmosphere inside the house. I remember when I added the loft, I was a little disappointed to not have the view of the sky directly overhead anymore and didn't like how dark it made everything. At the time, I didn't even consider how much brighter windows would make the place! Somehow, having the light pour in made it feel like a room for the first time and suddenly this floor above me felt like a ceiling as I stood in the middle of my imaginary kitchen cooking future bacon.

This is the south side of my house. Lots of big windows to let the sunshine in. I think of this as the front of my house so you may find it odd that there is no door. The main entrance will be on the east side under the gable because in winter, the roof will shed a nice big pile of snow on this side.

This is the west end of the house and these two windows are in the kitchen. The sink will be near the window on the left and there will be counter space under the one on the right. The left side of this wall is where my bathroom will be.

Here is the shady north side; fewer and smaller windows on this "colder side" of the house. The window on the right is the bathroom window because we all know I dream to see an eagle from the throne one day. And for the record, I did see a bald eagle circling while I was working at the cabin on Saturday! So it is now a very real possibility that my greatest dream will come true. In the middle is my back door which will open into a hallway with the bathroom on the right and the stairwell on the left. So the window on the left is at the base of the stairs which will climb to the east (right, in this view) and then turn left to head south up into the loft. The stairs to the basement take the exact same route so if you went in the back door, you'd walk down the hall, do a u-turn to the left, and head down to the basement.

This is the east end, and the main entrance. I have a really neat door to go in the big space on the right. It's got a nice little crescent shaped window at the top and on the right side there is a rectangular side light window. This door will open up right to where the wood stove is and the stairs up to the loft will begin on the right and wrap around the stove pipe. The window on the left is in the living room area.

Here is Nathan Harper harvesting honey yesterday. This barrel has a spinning device in it that uses centrifugal force to get the honey out of the combs. Then you open the spout at the base and just lay there on the floor and let it ooze right down your gullet. At least that's what I wanted to do.


Here Sharayah is using electric power to cut the waxy caps off the cells in the comb so the honey will come out. She warned me, "Careful, the knife is hot; don't touch it."

Without missing a beat, Nathan added, "Also, the wife is hot; don't touch her either." I assured them I didn't want to get burned...




They harvested a total of 7 gallons of this delicious golden goo. They gave me a jar which I didn't even wait to take home before I stuck my finger in for a taste. It was heavenly and was a fine compliment to the grilled chicken they fed me for dinner.

(Ridge) beam me up! Yay, there is a party in my heart and everyone's invited!!!!!

Here you can see the window on top of the wall where we stood to place the ridge. To give perspective, the ridge is 14 and 1/2 inches tall and is ten feet up in the air above the wall.


The roof will have a steep pitch of 12 in 12 which means for every 12 inches of horizontal run, it will rise 12 inches vertically. This means the angle if the roof will be 45 degrees so that the peak of the roof will make a perfect (I hope!) 90 degree angle.

One last item, regarding the graveyard. I spoke on the phone today with a relative of the people buried on my lot. I was rather miffed that they were putting a sign up on my lot without including me in the process. My plan was to do my very best to be polite and tell him I really didn't want a brown highway sign in my yard. I'd much rather have a couple headstones and maybe a nice little picket fence around the graves. Also, when I spoke to the engineer at the highway department, he told me the family had told him I was in agreement with the idea, and I was kind of mad they would tell a lie like that. So I called Norman who turned out to be so stinkin' nice I couldn't even pretend to be mad. He told me that his brother and sister (who run the bar and grill) and cousin told him I was such a nice guy that surely I wouldn't mind a sign to honor their deceased ancestors. He also assured me it would be greatly appreciated by the community who are so interested in the story. When I expressed concern about it affecting my property value, he assured me he would remove it in the event that I had trouble selling the place. So I relented and in so doing, probably just made about 250 new friends, the first of whom is Norman himself. He invited me to see his cabin, I invited him to see mine, and he told me to stop by his garden and pick up a pumpkin. Don't think I won't spruce up that ugly brown highway sign with a bunch of flowers. I'm thinking lots of tulips and daffodil bulbs, for a start.