Progress

Now that it is back to just Ben and I working on the house, the progress has been moving slower, but we are still getting things done!

Since my last post, we finished attaching the Simpsons strong ties to the trailers threaded rods. 

This task was a HUGE pain... For anyone who is reading that is going to be using the HDU4 and HDU5 ties, here are some tips:

Make sure you leave enough space in the framing in order to fit a screwdriver between the nearest stud and the tie. We didn't have enough space so we had to hand crank some of the screws into place. 

Double check that your nuts have PERFECT threads or else they will not go on the rods correctly, and they will shear the thread on the rod. We learned this the hard way and had to cut the rods down in order to get nuts on them. 

Here is my amateur video that I made in order to give some advice!


We also decided on a name for the house! WOOHOO!
It's name is The Wave Rider :)
This following video is of the progress we made on 7/27. Mostly it was finishing off those pesky tie rods! Both Ben and I are messing with them in this video, they pretty much took up most of our day.
I am messing around with video editing for the first time. Its pretty easy and definitely will make my videos a lot better.




This week we also got our front door deliverd! It is a french door that I am IN LOVE WITH! I am so happy Jacob was able to incorporate french doors into our plans. It is going to be so great to have in the house! Here it is arriving at the buildsite in our truck.

Here is me standing in front of the space the door is to be installed. It will be our front door coming in from the porch! 

This passed week we again had issues with rain. We decided that we are just going to ditch the tarp all together because the last time it rained, the tarp really did not help at all. We also think that leaving the tarp on there traps moisture from being able to evaporate out of the floor so we are leaving it open to the elements. This way though, the sun can dry out the wetness quicker. During our construction on this last Tuesday, 8/2, we had a storm! 

Also on 8/2 we got our first wall of sheathing done! We really wanted to be able to use our nail gun for this because we have to place a nail every 4-8" on every stud.. but our nail gun was too powerful. We turned down the PSI of the nail gun, but then the gun was shooting blanks and ripping holes in our plywood because the PSI was not strong enough to break the nail cartridge and actually shoot the nail out. So we have had to hand hammer allllll of the nails on our sheathing so far. My wrist has been hurting from all this hammering! But it needs to be done. 

After this sheathing was put on this wall, Ben cut out the "Window" with a sawzaw. It isn't actually a window, it's the access opening that we have to our utility shed. 

Here is Ben and his dad working to secure the utility shed. You can see Ben standing in the "window". This goes to our bathroom. 

I like to joke and say that our utility shed is the garage of our house. hahahah I am really happy that we are able to have this shed though because it adds some valuable space for things like tools. When it is finished, it will have a door from the outside and from the inside for full access. It will also be insulated.
This part of the build was the most confusing for me because of the angled cuts we had to make. I ended up messing some of them up because the boards weren't positioned the right way, and so we lost a couple hours of work and had to make another run to the store to pick up more treated lumber. But it is done! The floor assembly for this shed is built, but we haven't mounted it yet. That is up next!

We then continued sheathing yesterday and got four panels of plywood up. Again, we had to hand hammer it all! If anyone who is reading this has a suggestion for using a nail gun for this purpose, please let me know haha my wrist would appreciate any advice!

Two panels on this side, and two on the other. The bathroom is finally starting to feel like an actual room with actual walls!
We could really use some help with this sheathing so if you are interested please let me know! There will beer for whoever can come help hammer!
That is all the updates I have for now, thanks for reading!