Master Dave: part 7

The Rock: Framing part 1 

The hardest part about the framing requirements based on the design will be coming up this week: lifting each portion of each header up and into the ceiling. The second hardest part was getting them into the house! 
Lumber was delivered on Tuesday: 2 x 4’s were stacked in the garage, and the beam materials were left outside until we hauled them in on Wednesday. With snow looming on the weather reports, we were pressed to get everything inside. When our hard working hand, Mike, called in sick, the two old men looked at each other and said, “Nope.” We commandeered my son, Cameron, and Julie’s youngest, Audie, for some muscle! 
Each beam consists of three individual LVL (laminated veneer lumber). They are all 16” tall by 1 ¾” thick, heavy and unwieldy. Beam one is going in the kitchen and is 24’ long—the three components went in the front door and were leaned against the soon-to-be-removed kitchen wall. The dining room header is 18’ long, and they slid through the garage entry and found a home against the chimney chase. The bedroom beam is 28’ long and presented a problem: in addition to being the longest and heaviest, it had to go through the front bedroom window, in and through the house, out the back door, then back in as it cleared a bathroom wall before the trio found a home. Happily done before noon! 
We started on the middle wall between the kitchen and living room as it’s the only one we have final engineering for. We built temporary walls to support the ceiling and rafters above, then we cut out the kitchen wall. We marked our lines for where the new beam would go and started cutting the joists back. We also cut a hole in the drywall in the entry—we’ll push each LVL up and through before threading it back onto the post in the opposite wall. It’ll be heavier than it will be complicated, and we hope to have them all installed, and all the framing walls in, by the end of next week. We’ll see!