Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Free Wood and other design considerations

At this point, the little beast is coming together.  I managed to find enough rough cut 2 x 4's and a few 2 X 10's to finish off the framing.  The windows were found at a local dump, and so construction moves on.  I got creative in the framing, using most of the 2 X 4's flat.  This allowed for the framing to fit inside the corner posts and angle bracing.  I'm happy how it's turning out.  Without power, I'm hand cutting and using a battery operated saw to make the cuts.  There is nothing better than the slowness of building this way.  The new framing took the building from overbuilt and unmovable to positively granite like.  Nothing moves at all, anywhere.

Free wood creates some design realities as well.  I had to calculate how to utilize the resource. My solution was to eyeball the amount of wood and have at it.  When I was done I had about ten feet of 2 X 4 left over.  Trust the eyeball I guess.

This end in the top photo will have a high door to load things if needed onto the second floor from the outside.  There will be a single sliding door at the business end of the building.  Now I just need to build a few doors and find some siding.

As to the total cash outlay, hinges added an extra ten bucks, so I'm hovering around $310.


6 comments:

samh said...

Beautiful acquisitions. Beautiful idea. And beautiful execution.

Justus Thane said...

Really enjoying reading so far, and looking forward to following your progress.

How much timber framing did you have when you started?

Peter said...

I had minimal timber framing experience when I started, and a friend of mine who builds beautiful complex frames with artful joints would still say I have minimal experience. But looking at the imprecision in old barns is inspiring. The old framers had to dance around the wood that they had and cut joints to fit what was there. I figured I'd follow suit. Now all I have to wait for is some free siding.

Beth said...

Really enjoying reading about your progress! I grew up in upstate NY, so your story has extra poetry for me.

Anonymous said...

Frame looks like it'll be standing 100 years, but what did you use for the foundation? Just curious, and always designing my own project in my mind...

Peter said...

The building is basically floated. I sank cinder blocks into the ground and then stacked granite on top. Like the rest of the building, this was not really planned. I had free cinder blocks, and I lucked into about 2000 lbs of cut granite on Craigslist. Someone had redone a fireplace in their house. The cut stone was listed as free.