Loft floors

In the past 2 weeks I’ve been very busy though you can’t ‘see’ it since they’ve been little things:

*Made sure that Murphy’s Law didn’t apply in ANY way to our window openings (I unpacked a window and slid it into each opening to make sure that I had framed them correctly). It’d be bad if we sheathed and wrapped the house only to find out that the window opening sizes that were specified by the manufacturer were incorrect or that I'd framed them wrong.

*Made some temporary stairs for our porch since I felt unsafe stepping on a paint can to enter the house.

*Have cut most of the insulation for the top portions of the walls.

*We finalized our floor plans (sizes of the closets, counters and loft sizes / more space in the living area vs space in the kitchen/bathroom). Up until now these were all rough estimates that we were pretty sure we'd be happy with. To be able to stand in the house to see/feel if the areas seemed large enough was very helpful.

*All joists, blocking and flooring for the loft areas have been cut.

*Predrilled the holes for the loft flooring. Screws will be neatly countersunk.

*Bought silicon caulk for use above the wheel wells (we’ve heard this area is prone to water leaks) and for use where the window trim meets the siding, etc.

*Bought a long drill bit and some rods/nuts/washers so that we can more firmly attach the wall framing to the trailer frame before sheathing.

I wanted to be able to show you the completed lofts but my hold up was that our pneumatic nailer wants a vacation. Sure we’re almost finished using it on this project, but it’s really inconvenient and frustrating that it now seems to be jamming more often and is getting quite better at it. Saturday I had about 6 jams and yesterday I had about 8. Only one jam on Saturday required Jeff an hour to clean out using a hammer/nail sink/pliers/dremel tool with a saw blade. The jams come at the most inopportune times, always require that I partially disassemble the gun and also happen often enough to drastically impede my progress. I don’t know of anyone whom I dislike enough to give this tool to after we’re done with it. We certainly won’t be keeping it.

In the next few days I will be building the loft framing, attaching the joists to the wall framing (now using screws!) and then will be installing the loft flooring. I have created the loft framing in sections because I am the only one installing them (Jeff is finishing a research paper, the last of the homework and next week will be studying for finals). Lifting these smaller sections are quite manageable for me. I attach the loft framing section to the tops of the walls, add blocks in between, add on another section of framing, etc.

You can see the larger pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/jeff.hemsley/MiniMobileCottage?feat=directlink# I seem to be having technical problems this morning...(yawn)