The Perfect Trees
The process for our posts and beams
We decided to go with Hemlock trees for the posts and beams in the home. The amount of work invested in just one post or beam can be overwhelming, but Paul and Stan came through and pulled it off. Finding straight, healthy trees was the easy part, the property has plenty to offer. Proper planning is vital. Knowing what sizes and how many trees needed avoids unnecessary work. All together, our home needed fourteen posts and ten beams. To achieve this goal, they cut down about six trees. Once cut down and cleaned up, the trees were dragged down to the lumber mill by the Kubota tractor.
The milling took several days with only a couple obstacles along the way. Each tree was milled and then cut to the proper length needed for the house. The mill works really smoothly, cutting the trees a lot like butter. The hardest part of the milling is the heavy lifting and prying used to get the trees in place. Once the bark was removed, the color of the lumber was exposed, it was beautiful.
The final step to get the posts and beams ready to be positioned was to plane them. This is a process in which the roughness in the grain of the wood is smoothed out by removing uniform shavings. The posts were able to be run through the jointer, but the beams were too large and had to be hand planed. Working together, Paul and Stan were able to have all of the posts and beams planed in just three short days.
The work involved with just prepping the lumber gives me a much greater appreciation for all the hard work these guys are putting into the home. I know once everything is completed that we will have a much more sound and sturdy home to raise our family in. Progress is slow, but it is progress. In the mean time, we are living with Pauls parents, Stan and Bobbie. They have been amazing in helping not only with the house, but also with new baby Klyde. Though things get pretty hectic around here with four adults, two kids(one new born,) four dogs, two rats, two snakes and a chameleon, I couldn't be more grateful. We are exactly where we are intended to be and I wouldn't have it any other way. As our home comes together, I can't help but visualize raising my kids there and growing old by my husband's side. This house is proving to be more than just a place to live, but its a place I intend on calling my forever home.
I will continue to document this renovation for those of you who are interested in following. The pictures of the home before the demolition was started will be the next post, so be sure to follow to not miss any of this on-going renovation. To see all of the images from this, please click here. Any feed back is greatly appreciated, I really hope that everyone is enjoying following this progress as much as I enjoy documenting it.
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