Ev to the Rescue

Well, maybe it was the warm temps this week or maybe it was my crying jag the other day at Barneys, but when I arrived at the cabin yesterday I had nearly a whole roof’s worth of rafters.  And today there is actual sheathing on the roof.

 

I understand the delay.  Partly.  Barney built the cabin well in some spots, weirdly in others, and not at all where the roof meets the walls.  If I hadn’t wanted a higher pitched roof, I guess things could have stayed the same, but when the rafters came off there was nothing else holding the roof together.  Since I want an open ceiling, Ev has to make sure that an enormous carrying beam along the roof line, plus a cross beam that will define the edge of my loft, keeps the whole shebang upright.
 

The Town Library replaced its old addition this summer, and Randy could not bear to see all those beautiful hand-hewn beams go to waste, so he took apart the addition board by board, and stored it at his house.  Several of those beams are key to the cabin’s future: one will be the roofline beam, which not only will be way cool but which will add a bit of integrity to the structure that a wimpy old Home Depot piece of wood could not.

Ev has been fretting about the load that the chimney side of the house will have to take, and so has been reinforcing it so that it will withstand the Battle of Normandy.  This is where the money and time is going . . .

But this weekend should be gorgeous weather and Mike the chimney guy will be pouring his cement and hopefully even getting the chimney pot on.

Ev and I did have a bit of a tiff about the loft.  I want it 9 feet; he says that because of the placement of the windows in front and the door in the rear the big beam that has to cross the house has to go at 7 feet, rendering the loft 7x12, which is damn dinky, especially since at least 2 feet on each side of the 12 foot width is too low under the roof to do anything except amuse the cat.

 

And he is not easily amused.

But what can I do?  Suck it up and think of a nifty design to put on this big 10” wide beam that spans the width of the house and that will be seen from below --and, dear reader, 5” of which will have to be climbed over when one reaches the top of the ladder to get to the loft.  Hey, at least it’ll remind me of my old days on the shrimp boats, nestled in the berth.  But wait . . . as Woody Allen would say, “the wrong life is flashing before my eyes.”

Ev is also asking me to change not only the name of this blog but the name of the cabin as well.  He thinks it’s demeaning.  After all, the original poison ivy invasion, from which the cabin derived its nickname, has been sent packing.  Ev calls it “the Dacha.”  I am indebted to another blog called “the Strange Love” for this photo, in a post titled, cleverly, “Dacha.”. 

Um . . . be warned, it’s not a tiny house blog . . . I rather liked the photo of the retro blow-up doll . . .

http://hombresteph.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-post.html