Author Archives: cstults

We’re continuing to have the most severe winter ever. Another freak storm rolled in, and the snow hasn’t stopped since I last posted. We set up a video camera and a snow depth stick so we can monitor the snow level remotely. Sam has been plowing with the dozer almost every day. The snow wasContinue reading “Plowing into the New Year”

Sam has mostly recovered from his facial injury but our progress is still suffering. Unusual weather patterns (La Niña and a polar vortex) are causing the wettest winter we’ve seen since moving here. Of all the years… On the upside, the less than ideal working conditions have allowed more time for our wreath and garlandContinue reading “BZ Elves and Holiday Gift Wrap”

Andrew and Emily (old Spacex friends) came all the way from Virginia to help us for a week! After graduating from Sam’s two-minute nail gun training course, they got to work. We started with blocking. “Blocking” involves cutting short pieces of wood to fit vertically between the girts for extra support. We use blocking behindContinue reading “Andrew and Emily”

John is a former Olympian and currently coaches skeleton (the head first sliding sport). His coaching duties are escalating with the winter Olympics nearing, and he’ll be leaving us for a few weeks to work with his athletes. Since wall sheathing isn’t an easy two-person job, we decided to do as much as we couldContinue reading “An Olympic Sprint”

We had just resumed framing when it started to rain. And it did not stop. It was the wettest week of the year. Framing quickly came to a halt since we didn’t want the wood to get wet. Our progress, however, continued, as we have an endless amount of other things to work on. TheContinue reading “Roofing in the Rain”

That’s what Sam said when he took that photo of me. It felt strange to be working on solid ground for so long, so we took a break from girts and went back up to the roof to install the fascia cladding. (See the redeeming photo of myself below.) We also had to complete thisContinue reading “Nice Fascia!”

After completing the roof, we began framing the walls. We started with the sill plates at the ground level. They bolt directly to the slab and provide a wood base for the rest of the framing. The main function of a sill plate is to help seal the building from the environment. We used pressureContinue reading “Girts”

Out with Jackson and in with Steve! Steve also lives in LA and used to share a house with Sam and Jackson. He is our second most frequent visitor. Steve took over Jackson’s job as chief bucket truck operator. I continued cutting plywood, and Sam and John maintained their positions on the roof. We chargedContinue reading “Roofing with Steve”

Framing the roof has been the most challenging task yet. We began with the purlins. We developed a system in which two people install them from the bucket truck. First, we load the telehandler with a stack of 2×12’s high up in the air. Two people in the bucket truck fly over the stack and secureContinue reading “Roofing with Jackson”

We weren’t quite done with the steel. We put up the two remaining crane beams, extensions of the yellow ones. The red ones terminate at the dividing wall between the shop and living space. One day they will all be the same color. We wanted to weld the crane beams in place before moving on.Continue reading “Buckets of Fun”