Stone Masonry - Rock on!

Working with stone to build a 2'-0" high perimeter knee wall was what you might call a strengthening experience.  Gneiss from a local quarry (+/- 5 miles away) was hand picked by Mark, Julia and Jammin' and delivered to our site a few days before the 'walling' began.  Some big, some small, some unbelievably heavy....

Our walls are dry stacked stone walls, meaning no mortar was used in the process.  

We spent a lot of time shaping our stones with mallets and chisels to fit snugly against each other for stability and, more importantly, aesthetics.  Cornerstones were the most critical in the design of the wall, as they most have two good faces, and set the tone for the rest of the wall. 

Ta Daaaa!

Breaker Breaker

Power up.

Time to bring in the electrical service and provide the barn with lights, smoke detectors, and GFI outlets.  We all got our hands in the breaker box, connected up our 3 way switches, and finally got energized.

20 Pennies and Rough Cut Lumber

After gaining some basic carpentry skills in the previous week, we started to put together our exterior wall system assemblies in preparation for our natural wall systems.  Our north and south walls will be a 14" double stud wall with a woodchip/clay insulation mixture within the stud wall cavity.   Our east and west walls will be strawbale.  

So, using rough cut 2x material we framed up our walls, and framed out our doors and windows.

It's Hammer-time!

Time to get some basic carpentry skills mastered and get some flooring in, so we can walk around in our beautiful timberframe barn.  (Like the cheesy photo-op?)

We started the week by framing out our first story floor system.  Oversized 2x12 rough-sawn floor joists with loose underside decking in between will give us plenty of space for blown-in cellulose insulation, creating a super-insulated floor system, sitting about 2'-0" above grade.  

Nico and Ben.......men at work!  Nico is toe-nailing the floor joist into the base of the timber-frame.  The area that Ben is standing in will be floor-less, as it will be a tractor bay for Knoll Farm.

Ahhhh, finally, a floor we can walk on.  The floor is made up of 

rough-sawn 2x8 planks nailed right into our floor joists.  Some may say it looks rough, however, it sure does have the beautiful aesthetic of an authentic barn. 

 

Get Framed!

         

Cross-cut saws, chisels, boring machines, and mallets were the tools at hand this week as we learned how to lay out our frame and cut joinery for our timber frame structure. 

Check out this beautiful tenon

      

The first bent of our frame, up and braced.

After cutting out all the joinery for our frame, each bent is assembled on the ground and then tilted up into its correct position onto the sill plate.  The joinery for all of our posts, beams and knee braces is mortise and tenon with pegs made from an ash tree.  The posts are toe-nailed into the sill plate with timber-lock screws.  

We put all of the first floor structure up on Friday afternoon, and celebrated with a group photo, followed by group beers!

    

Saturday morning, the crane showed up at the site, and with his help, we were able to place the ridge beam (with scarf joint) and rafters into place.  I think we were all a little surprised and excited to be putting this large frame together so successfully.  

How special to put together such a  beautiful structure, with a relationship to our frame from start to finish.

From Stump to Sticker

We spent the beginning of last week leveling our site, sizing and building formwork, and pouring concrete for our barn's grade beam foundation.  The weather up here is pretty wild: sunny and warm one minute, big wind and horizontal rain the next.  Not the ideal for the the work we are doing, but native Vermonters just shrug and say, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes, and it will change!"  Nevertheless, we were able to put together all of our formwork, cut and lay our rebar, and get everything level by the time the truck showed up for our pour.  We even had time to learn how to float concrete to get an extra nice surface for our grade beam.

The latter part of the week we spent sourcing more lumber for our project.  We cut down two trees at Yestermorrow's campus, one white pine about 100+ years old, and a hemlock tree about 70+ years old.  After learning about safe felling techniques, our fearless leader Nick, dropped the trees with his chainsaw.  Once down, he limbed the trees (removed all limbs), and then bucked the trees into several different lengths - indicated by our cut list for our barn.  This method gives you the opportunity to waste less wood than buying from a traditional lumber yard.  Some of the limbs of the trees are  even big enough for us to get some decorative pieces out of.

Hauling these large segments of tree from the forest took the majority of Thursday afternoon, and I now know more about logging equipment than I ever anticipated.  An understanding of physics and points of leverage are really helpful tools when figuring out how to move an 800 lb. tree, as well as the right tools!

Friday, we spent milling our trees into lumber for our project.  As a professional sawyer, Nick has his own portable sawmill, the Wood Miser.  It really is pretty amazing to watch a tree trunk transform into lumber.  Once cut to size, the lumber is placed on 1x furring strips, known as stickers, above the ground.  This technique allows the lumber to dry, and control (and prevent) warpage.  Our lumber will not be kiln dried for this project, so we need to take extra care in our stickering process.  Staggering the stickers is a big no-no, as this will cause uneven drying and deformation.

What a View!

The view from our jobsite is absolutely breathtaking.  Knoll Farm sits up high, overlooking the Mad River Valley with sweeping views of the local ski mountains, the Mad River, neighboring farms, and lots and lots of beautiful forest.