The On Coming Storm

 

Well it’s been a long time since I posted anything. This same thing seemed to happen last summer.  The nice weather comes along.  I think “ya! I can get some things done!”   But it doesn’t happen!  Last summer it was a lack of money.  This summer it was a lack of time.  O.K…. Lack of money as well.  There is always a lack of money, ain’t there?

What happened is that I finally quit the job I was complaining about in past blogs.  I teamed up with a friend of mine to start our own general contracting business.  I had a fantasy that I was going to make more money and have more time to myself.  But that ain’t the case.  I had a fellow business owner say to me, “The beauty of being self-employed is that you get to choose which 80 hours a week you want to work.”  So needless to say, starting your own business is a time suck.  It’s also an emotional rollercoster as well.  You try to split your focus between the work you are doing right in front of you and making sure the near future is filled with work as well.  Keep the money flowing.  Even though the economy is picking up, what the downturn has taught people is how to hold onto a buck and squeeze out a bargain. I don’t blame them.  I obviously do the same.  But if you are the major bread winner in the family forget about getting a good night’s sleep.  So the word is scramble.  Find the work, do the work and bring home the bacon (quite literally… as long as there is something to eat) and do it all over again.  But I’m loving it because it’s mine and I only have to impress the clients.  No middle management bull shit, no yearly review to justify my existence. No need to kiss the company owner’s ass because I’m the owner and my ass is pretty kissable.  So like most Americans, I’m over worked and broke but free to call my own shots.  Is this a good thing or not?  We shall see.  For now I put in the time to make it work and all the while there Betty sits waiting for some action.

Betty's back side still needing work.

 

It finally came in the first week of September.  Generally, September in Seattle is one of the nicest months.  Many painters I know love the month of September because it’s sunny but not too hot. So on a Sunday when the forecast called for a long string of beautiful sunny days I decided the time had come to tear back the tarps that made up the roof. 

 

 

 I had dressed Betty up, now it was time for a hairdo.  I  pull off the rafters in back in order to frame up the second floor!  I had a light week for work and figured I could get this done, right? 

 

 

 

 

But as you have read in my past blogs, things have a way of taking interesting twists that you may not have anticipated.  A window install that takes longer than expected.  The temperatures jumping into the 90’s.  The beginning of school, soccer practices, meeting, bids to write, SCRAMBLING.  Now Betty sat there again, neglected.  This time with the humiliation of having no top on and the nice weather clock was running down.

 

 

 

 

 

I did manage over the summer to score on some great material.  I managed to find 365 square feet of roofing shingles for $80 (I need 362 to cover the garage).  Cleaned up some more framing wood and stock piled some left over pieces of Trex for a porch.  I did get Betty cleaned out and re-organized.  (I’m always re-organizing)  On the side opposite the wood rack, I built half of the wall that will separate the sitting area from the storage area.  Put in permanent wood shelves and filled them.  All my tools, hardware and bags of concrete left over from past jobs all sit neatly on these shelves.  Shelves that are right under the large hole I cut above.  These are things that don’t necessarily like to get wet.  So as I listened to the weather forecasters raving less about the glorious sunshine and record temperatures and began to preach of the impending doom of oncoming rain and thunderstorms, my anxiety meter climbed.  I knew I had to jump into action.  I had hoped for some help, but none offered itself.  It was simply me, up against mother-nature and out of time. 

Grey skies looming above
 

It was the following Friday afternoon when I was finally able to finish the demolition of the existing rafters, pull all the nails and clean up the area.  I wanted to get a jump on framing up the walls so all I had to do on Saturday was put up the rafters and sheet the roof.  However, the prep work slowed me down and the last day of sunshine ended once again with no new roof in site.  Saturday started with a little sun that was quickly swallowed by a building depth of clouds.  Nothing threatening, just a reminder that I needed to work quickly.  I got started at 8am.  My goal was to have all the walls done by noon and rafters set by the end of the day.  I called my folks to tell them of the situation and they wanted hourly reports of my progress.  Here is how the things went:

·        8am - Pulled out the windows that I want to put into the sleeping loft and prepped my tools.  I wanted to put in the last two joists for the floor and finish up the floor so I didn’t have to work around a large hole.  However I found that the 2x6’s I was holding onto for this purpose ended up being 2 inches to short. It figures!  Have to move on!  My thought was that I would raise the height of the roof 3 feet for the loft, but the window I salvaged to use on the south wall is 42” tall and to cool to do without.  This will make my walls nearly 5 feet and the peak of the roof nearly 8 feet taller than the original roof line.  Much taller than I planned which means more framing.  I figured it would be a good idea to keep up the good relationship with my neighbors to the south and make sure this height would not obstruct their view.  So I built one wall and waited for a proper time to knock on my neighbor’s door.

 

·        9:30am – Neighbors took a look at my wall and gave me the green light to proceed.  Sun poked out of the cloud to give me hope that the rain would hold off.

·        10am – Second wall finished!  On cruising speed!

 

·        12pm – Third wall finished.  This one faces the alley and will have the multi pain window.  It took a little time as I built the headers for both walls that have windows.  Clouds moved back in but nothing that looks to concerning.  Lunch break.

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• 2pm – There’s always one wall to give you trouble!  That of course is the last wall I need to frame.  But the trouble was my own creation.  I discovered that I placed the framing for the final wall on the wrong side of the existing rafter and had to pull it apart.  I came to discover that if you are going to nail anything into a piece of old growth tight grain Doug fir, you better be committed because it will not come out without a long painful struggle!  It takes me about 30 minutes to pull things apart.

·        4pm:  The last wall continues to be a challenge as it is built on a 22 degree angle to match the pitch of the rafters.  I get it done, but am forced to call it quits for the day as we are going out to dinner with my in-laws and their out of town guest.  I check the old I-Phon Almanac weather report for Sunday and it is not promising.  30% chance of rain by 9am.  Each hour added another 10% increase in chance of showers.  (Dinner was fabulous by the way!  We went to a quaint little Italian joint nestled in the Alki neighborhood of Seattle called La Rustica.  I had prawns wrapped in a thin cut of veal.)

Sunday morning started in a fog that already made everything damp.  I’m up early and eager to go, but  Dana forbade me to start hammering before 9am!  That was when the chance of rain jumped to 30%!  I tried to keep my cool as I set up everything for the day.  As I am re-using the old rafters I decided a quiet activity like scraping and sanding the old paint would be o.k. until the clock struck 9.  However dark clouds were looming right over my shoulder whispering there songs of dread into my ears.  By the time 9am came around, it wasn’t the chime of a bell but the rumble of thunder that greeted me.  It seemed that the 30% odds worked against this bet and the first squall came through with a heavy dumping of rain that lasted about an hour.  Holding back no amount of volume as I cursed he sky I got a tarp up and was ready to call it quits for the day.  But the rain stopped and the sun repented by poking through the clouds giving me the encouragement I needed to go back at it.

·        11am: Managed to set the ridge beam into place.  Wow it looked really high!  I thought it best to check with the neighbors again to make sure this would fly with them.  They approved and my little loft is now a full height room.  With the addition of the ridge beam that didn’t exist before I had to pull a new measurement and adjust the angle on each rafter.

·        12:30pm:  My father-in-law came by to help out.  I had a lot of running up and down on the ladder in order to get the right lengths and angles.  The old rafters were like some worn down bones.  None are a consistent length nor straight.  It was nice to have a second set of hands.

 

·        2:30pm:  All the rafters are in place.  Despite my earlier curses, the weather gods are being kind to me as they keep blowing the dark clouds past.  I start to cut plywood sheeting hoping to get enough on for a tarp to secured to.

·        3pm: Thunder is rumbling in the distance adding even more urgency.

·        3:15pm Thunder getting louder with wind picking up.  Makes it difficult to carry full sheets of plywood up the ladder.  Larry’s a great help

·        3:45pm: I have about ½ the plywood sheeting up.  Clouds are looking scary!

·        4pm: I think we can make it!

·        4:05pm: Lightening flashing.  We are about ¾ finished.  We are thinking it might be good to stop here and throw up the tarps.

·        4:15pm:  Yup!  Time to stop!  Weather gods are growing impatient.  They throw a lighting strike nearby and yelled at us with a loud pound of thunder.  We started tarping Betty’s new second floor room.

 

·        4:40pm: THE WEATHER GODS WILL WAIT NO MORE!!.  The clouds open up, the wind swoops down like a hand slapping us into submission.  We retreat into the house and hope for the best.  Hope that I can get a roof on her before the really bad weather comes to town.

Update:  Since this day I did manage to get the rest of the plywood up.  I salvaged some really nice tong and groove boards that were originally on Betty’s interior walls and ran them through the plainer. 

 

These made up the soffet.  I was ready to put the flashing and shingles up when a wind storm came through and tore off all the felt paper.  So… I put on more along with the flashing.  I am hoping that this Sunday will be roofing day!