This is Jack posting this time – Karen is doing her Grandmotherly duties with Destiny (who’s on spring break and staying with us this week).  I wanted to share what we’ve done in the past week.

Blue Ridge Timberwrights have gone now, having raised the timber frame and the first floor exterior walls.  Now it’s our turn.  We have until April 9th to install the second floor joists, the second floor subfloor and three load-bearing walls that will support the timber roof purlins over the upstairs bedrooms.  Then, a team from PanelPros in Massachusetts will arrive to complete the exterior structure, installing the second floor walls, the timber purlins, the tongue-in-groove pine ceilings, and the SIP roof panels.

We’ve gotten a lot done this week, and have completed installation of all the second floor joists and the installation of the subflooring. 

Here you can see our neighbor, Steve, setting one of the joists for the second floor.

This picture shows the catwalk between the two wings of the house.

We got a good start on the first of the load-bearing walls yesterday (you can see part of it in the foreground of the picture above, laying flat on the subfloor), then knocked off early, bringing all the tools in because it was forecast to rain last night (which it did).  Since today is Easter, we all took a well-earned rest.  

Here is a picture showing the breakfast room (one of the more important rooms in a Bed & Breakfast) with the floor above completed:

I love the look of the timbers and the knee-bracing.  The ceiling above the timber framing will be 1″ x 8″ tongue-in-groove white pine planking. and all the timbers will be left exposed, with drywall between the timbers.

Exciting times!  This is the part of the project where every day we can see great changes.  Once we get to the part where we’re just doing wiring and plumbing, no one will be able to see much change for weeks at a time. 

Many thanks to the friends that have helped us this week – Tom Brown (who sits next to me in the choir at Bethlehem United Methodist Church), Tom Ruckdeschel (an old friend from Raleigh, who originally got us interested in Smith Mountain Lake), Matt Kidd (a neighbor across the runway) and Steve Watts (our next door neighbor). Without them there is no way we could have done this.

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