Because my Mom has been bugging me to update the blog, we'll start with the house...

We've done some work in the yard, mostly just maintenance, but we also built two raised beds for a vegetable garden. After about 2 months in the ground the garden is doing really well, and we have salad greens every few days. The beets are close to being ready, and the cucumber and squash plants are getting big - lots of blossoms. The herbs are doing well, and the strawberry plants have taken hold. We've picked all the blossoms off the strawberries this spring to let them take hold, so hopefully we have a good crop next year.

I had a load of free wood chips delivered by a tree company last week, so I am slowly getting them distributed around the property to keep the weeds down and control the mud when we have our spring storms. Last week was really stormy, and we had quite a bit of mud all week long.

The bigger news is on the inside of the house. When I removed the old (east) front door and put in the new staircase from the basement to the first floor, I had to remove the staircase from the first floor to the second floor. That was last memorial day. A bit over a year later, it was time to build a new staircase up from the first floor. The last bits of the old staircase, that let us access the second floor with a step ladder, are in the way of some air conditioning ducts, and air conditioning is a big priority this summer, so the stairs have to go.

Building stairs is one of the most challenging parts of framing. When building walls or floors, things that are 1/4" off aren't that big of a deal, and "pretty level/plumb" is often good enough. Building stairs is much harder, because the acceptable margin for error is more like 1/16", and if the treads aren't level you are going to feel it. There are a lot of parts that all have to come together in the same plane to get it all to fit. I hate it and love it all at the same time.

We started by demolishing most of the east half of the 2nd floor. All the fixtures of the bathroom, all the interior walls, all the ceilings, the attic stairs (which would be at the diagonal braces you see in this picture) and the floors.

I managed to save the floors. There isn't any subfloor, it's just the finished floor on the joists. The flooring is heart pine. In the 20's they used it as utility wood, 90 years later it costs about $35/sf, if you can get it at all. I'm hoping to salvage it and use it for the ceiling over the front porch.

I built new load bearing walls on the first floor on either side of the stairs (I'll add the pictures later, they are on Hun's camera). The walls are funky here, because the second floor exterior wall doesn't rest directly over the first floor exterior wall. Someone got creative with the framing, and it has made life interesting. But I got everything properly supported with permanent and temporary walls, I sistered on a couple new joists with glue and bolts, and then busted out the sawzall.

Cutting floor joists is just one of those things you have to do on faith.

When I cut the first one, there was some creaking and popping, but it only moved about 1/16", so that was a good sign. The second joist didn't make any noise, and it moved even less, so I knew I had things properly supported.

Working up there was a little dicey.


I was climbing around over the top of the basement stairs, so at most it was about 17 feet down.

But Hun was out of town and the dogs were (mostly) smart enough to leave me alone, so I was able to concentrate. They don't like me climbing ladders or moving around up there, so they just went and hid for most of the day.

After cutting all the joists on one side, it was time to add the new headers. As you can see here, about 60% of the joists rest on a 2x6 wall, but the four at the end are floating. The header bridges the gap between the the load bearing wall and the joist that was sistered (it's the new 2x8 at the end of the cut joists).

Here you can see the first 1/2 of the header.

All the joists attach to this 2x8, and then another 2x8 is added to strengthen it. This double 2x8 header rests on the bearing wall, and ties into the double 2x8 joist.

It's not as complicated as it sounds, and if you look at as the weight of the roof and the walls and the floors trying to find their way down to the ground, you can (or at least I can) picture how the structure will behave.

Here it is from below, with the header finished, and the temporary wall supporting the floating joists removed.














One nice thing about the old balloon framing (where the wall studs rise the entire height of the house) is that the interior walls only support the floors above them and provide stability to the exterior walls. It makes projects like this easier because I don't have to support the roof.

After I finished the floating header, I moved to the other side and installed the other header. By comparison, it was much easier, because it has a wall beneath it the entire length, and it only supports a few joists. Most of the 2nd floor exterior wall is supported by a tripled 2x10 beam I installed earlier.

Once the stair opening was framed, it was time to build the staircase. I had four 16-feet long 2x12s. I did a lot of careful measuring to lay out the staircase. It had to be exactly right.

It takes a while to cut the notches out of the stringers. It is repetitive and boring.

But once done (and with some help from a second set of hands - thanks Ken)...

...you pretty much have a staircase

With my goal for the weekend clearly in reach, it was time for some nourishment...


That would be a 32oz bone in, prime, dry aged ribeye steak, with mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans and a salad. I washed it down with a liter of mineral water.

That isn't a plate by the way, it's a serving platter. The knife on the left isn't a steak knife, it's a full sized kitchen knife.

Think I was hungry? But I didn't eat it all...

... I had some help.













After dinner my newly devoted construction crew decided to escort me back to the job, just in case I needed help.





















A couple of hours of table saw work, a handful of screws and a couple tubes of glue and we have a finished staircase.















If you have a sharp and critical eye, you will see that the top edges of the headers are not flush with the joists. No, it's not a mistake. The joists are true 2x8, while modern lumber is 1.5x7.5. I am happy to say that everything came out plumb/true/level/square.







To the land of projects future...






















So that's the state of the estate. I'm more than happy with how things turned out, and crossing this milestone opens up quite a few new projects large and small. It looks (fingers crossed) like I can have the air conditioning installed in the next few weeks, though who knows how well it can cope with our wide open and uninsulated house. It will at least take the edge off at night.

I had a busy weekend cleaning up after this project, with 2 trips to the dump (1-2 more to go) and quite a bit of sweeping and organizing tools. This week I can demo the remainder of the old staircase and get it out of the way, then it's on to running ducts and wiring up the heating/cooling equipment in it's new and final home.

Aside from the house...

The only big happenings of the spring was our trip home to Portland/Seattle in April. Both pups flew with us, and Cooper got his first taste of NW life. I think he liked it...













We had a lot of fun, and a very busy trip. We arrived on Friday, drove from Seattle straight to Emily's 30th Surprise Birthday Party in Portland. We then gathered with the Curtins/Blakers/Danielsons/Sundsteds to celebrate all the April birthdays in our family. I got to meet my new nephew, Cameron.

The highlight for me was going to the beach house for a couple of days. Duyen and James were able to join us, and we had TONS of fun. On Sunday night we picked up some crabs and oysters down on Tillamook Bay and came back to the house for a feast. Then we realized too late (as always) that we don't have a pot big enough to cook them at the house. So we went back to the Wheeler antique shops and found an old stainless steel commercial mixer bowl. It worked perfectly. We built a fire, had boiled crabs, oysters (raw and roasted), beet greens and bay shrimp. We all played on the beach while dinner cooked.

































We bought a kite, and because we all felt that it's themes of unicorns and rainbows made it by far the most gay-inspired kite ever produced, we decided to name it the gayest name we could think of.

Meet Troy.


Sadly, there wasn't a lot of wind, so Troy mostly hovered close to the ground. But someday he will be able to soar with the seagulls, and he's still at the beach house awaiting that day.

I took some decent pics that night, but this is one of the best I've ever taken...

Around sunset dinner was ready.

























After ending our dinner by nearly being drowned by a very large sneaker wave, we packed up and lit off some of the Thai lanterns we had left over from the wedding.


































So, that was by no means the whole trip, but it's where most of the pictures were taken.

Both dogs thoroughly enjoyed themselves, as did we.

Now, it's back to the Summer grind. We don't have any trips planned, as construction and job uncertainty for me has gutted any discretionary income. But we are starting to think about another big trip... SE Asia 2010? It's a long way off, but we have to start planning early.