The roof is off by 1 inch.

I was very surprised on Sunday — Memorial Day Weekend, mind you — when Corey, the owner of the company building my new home, showed up in his truck with a new worker and the worker’s daughter. Corey told me that he thought there might be a 1-inch error and that he was there to make measurements and set up the work for the guys when they arrived on Tuesday. He was unable to come Tuesday because he had to be in Chelan to take delivery of some steel.

The word “error” put me on alert, but he didn’t seem too concerned. I let him do his measurements while the other guy helped him. I’d just finished work on my chicken coop and was doing odd jobs around the yard. The worker’s daughter, whose name I’ve forgotten, spent her time looking at the chickens and climbing some of the equipment.

I decided to replace the GFCI outlet on my temporary power pole. I’d never done anything like that before and although I was confident I could do it without any problems, there was something comforting about having people around in case I electrocuted myself.

The guys did their work, with Corey climbing the ladder multiple times while his other guy mostly watched and listened to what Corey told him. I got the feeling the worker was new and being trained. I really didn’t pay attention. After a week of construction guys on the property, I can pretty much tune anything out. Then he told me that there were two ways to fix the problem, which was minor. One way made a lot of extra work. The other way was to simply shift the trusses by one inch — which is what he was going to tell the crew to do on Tuesday.

Afterwards, he and his worker started looking through the piles of wood beams that had been stacked near the building. They found what they were looking for in the middle of the stack. And then they used the bobcat to rearrange the stack of beams.

This is exactly what I didn’t want to see. You see, they’d left the keys in the bobcat — which was really a Caterpillar Skid Steer Loader (with wheels instead of treads) — and I’d been eyeing it with the idea of using it to move some of the gravel around for dust control. I knew I’d be bringing my helicopter in soon and the ground beyond the grassy landing zone I’d prepped was about a foot thick with fine dust. When I landed, I’d create a dust cloud visible from space. I wanted to spread some of that gravel over the dust and I didn’t want to use a hand shovel to move it. The previous evening, I’d even climbed aboard and gotten it started. But when I realized I didn’t know how to drive it — it doesn’t drive the same as a Bobcat, which I had a tiny bit of experience with — I shut it down and turned to Google for help. I’d found a how-to article online that explained how it worked and planned to tackle the job later that day.

Trouble is, when they used it to move the beams around, they removed the bucket and attached the forklift. Then they moved some of the beams so they blocked the path back to the bucket. Even if I could figure out how to swap the two, I couldn’t drive to the bucket. (There was no way I’d try to use the forklift to move the beams.)

So there was no earth moving for me that weekend.

After laying out the beams for the other workers, they all climbed back into the truck and drove off. They’d been at the site less than three hours.

And yes, the time-lapse was running. Because they moved stuff around, I figured I’d make a movie. Nothing too exciting and it’s really short. You can see me working at the power pole, too.

Only a half day, but a lot done.

I was home on Thursday morning, mostly writing blog posts, when the workers put in about 4 hours of work.

They brought along a new piece of equipment — a man lift — and used that with a series of cables and pulleys to hoist each section of my RV garage roof into place. This isn’t the highest roof, but it’s likely the most cumbersome. It required hands-on participation from all four workers at once.

It took the man lift, four guys and a bunch of ladders to raise each roof section.

As one of my friends noted, the fully framed roof trusses looked a lot like bleachers when they sat on the ground. But once they were lifted into place over the building’s biggest open space — 24 x 48 feet — they started looking a lot more like a roof.

And the poles started looking a lot more like a building.

The first part of the roof is up.

It took the guys less than 4 hours to lift all four truss sections and secure them to the poles. Then Angel told me that they were needed at a job in Chelan and would be back on Tuesday. I gave them the box of cookies I’d bought them and they drove off.

Later that day, I met with Tanya in the office. I told her about the progress and we both agreed it was a good thing they hadn’t hit any rocks when digging the post holes. She said that the building should be done in 4 weeks. I was so stunned that I didn’t think to ask her whether she meant 4 weeks from the start date or 4 weeks from that day. Either way, it means I can finally get my things out of storage — likely before the end of June.

And that’s something to celebrate.

Here’s Thursday’s time-lapse:

More than just a bunch of poles now.

I was away from home yesterday for most of the day — I had an interesting charter to a mountaintop in the morning and dozens of errands to run in the afternoon — and missed the action here. Fortunately, my time-lapse camera caught it all. Of course, I could see what was done when I stopped in around lunchtime for an hour and then when I got home at around 6 PM that evening and I did manage to take a few photos from different angles than the time-lapse offers.

My building site is nestled between hills on the south and west sides. The road to my home winds down the hill on the south side, so when I drive down the hill, I get a perfect bird’s eye view of my site. I often stop there on my way in or out to get a photo of the site in progress. When I drove down at lunchtime, I had to do a double-take. It looked like they’d poured a concrete pad. But then I realized that one of the three loads of gravel Jeff, the earth-moving guy, had delivered was gone; the crew had spread the gravel inside the building’s footprint.

By lunchtime, the horizontal supports for the posts had been removed, gravel had been spread, and the roof trusses had been laid out.

I stopped to talk to the crew before going inside. I wanted to tell them that it was okay to spread some more gravel in the area to the north of the building which would eventually be the apron for my four-car garage. Dust was a real issue. The constant driving over the area had ground the soil into a very fine powder. I knew that kind of dirt. I knew that watering it down would turn it into a snotty muck. I had two more loads of gravel in a pile and they had a bobcat. We’d use some of that gravel to keep the dust down.

Angel, as usual, was cheerful and helpful. After agreeing to do that, he complemented me on the pad. Both he and Corey, the boss, had checked it for levelness. He said it was very good. From the way he spoke, I got the feeling that they didn’t often get to work with building pads so well prepared. But Jeff had done a great job. I sent him an email this morning to let him know.

I was out all afternoon and, when I got home, the crew was gone for the day. But they had kept busy. One of my building’s two roofs were fully framed and ready to be lifted.

One roof had been framed by the end of the day.

To give you a better idea of what’s going on, check out the elevation sketches below. The building will have two roofs. The low roof, which is the one they framed out that day, was built with trusses — at least I think that’s what they’re called; someone will likely correct me if I’m wrong — and will go over the RV garage on the south side of the building. I don’t care about the wood beams showing in that area since it’s all storage and shop.

Elevation sketches for my building show the two rooflines.

The other side of the building will have my living space on the second floor. I don’t want to look at trusses with naked wood beams and hanging hardware there. Instead, I want a vaulted ceiling that will be finished with sheetrock like any other ceiling. That means they need to build the roof completely onsite. I suspect that’s what yesterday’s lumber delivery was — the third lumber delivery so far.

I noticed the new stack of wood when I got home that evening. Judging from its size, it must be for my living space roof.

After being interviewed by Chuck Joiner for an upcoming MacVoices video podcast (link to come), I wandered around “inside” my home under construction with a bottle of hard cider made by a friend. I wish I could explain the way my emotions welled up inside me. After only three days, there was an amazing amount of progress on what would be my future home.

My. Future. Home.

I was finally moving forward again.

Those who know me think that my life has been stalled for only the two years that I’ve been dealing with my extremely ugly divorce. But that’s not true. I’ve come to realize that my life has been stalled for about ten years.

But now I’m moving forward again. Working hard to achieve my goals, no longer held back by a “partner” who makes excuses instead of plans.

As I walked through the site, between posts that would soon be connected by framing and walls, I realized something else: everything around me was mine. Like like other things I’d worked hard to get — my helicopter and my vehicles and my RV — I’d earned all of the money to make this dream a reality. I was walking through the beginning of my new home designed to my specifications to meet my personal needs.

And that’s what I was thinking about as I wandered around the site, imagining how I’d use the shop space and where I’d park my vehicles and where I’d place my furniture in the rooms upstairs.

And thinking again about sipping wine on the deck overlooking the Wenatchee Valley.

Here’s the Day 3 Time-lapse:

I cannot believe how quickly this happened.

The workers arrived at 7 AM sharp yesterday morning and got right to work. Within 30 minutes, two poles had been placed.

These guys didn’t waste any time. Within 30 minutes, the first two posts had been planted.

I was writing yesterday’s blog post in my RV and happened to glance out my office window. What I saw blew me away. I couldn’t believe how quickly the poles went in. At one point, I think they were averaging 10-15 minutes per pole.

My building will be one story tall on one side and two stories on the other side. The two-story side has some seriously long poles — 32 feet, according to Angel (the worker foreman). Apparently, that’s among the tallest the company usually does.

Of course, the chances of four workers being able to hoist a 32-foot long 8×8 post are slim. I was just wondering how they’d lift the long poles when the boss, Corey, showed up. With a crane.

The pace slowed down a bit, but still moved along at a good clip. By 2 PM, they were almost done placing poles. That’s when the Chelan County building inspector showed up. (Yes, I had my first inspection on the second day of construction.) He chatted with me and Corey and went through the plans, asking a few questions. Then he looked into all the holes and at all the poles suspended over the hole bottoms. In the end, he signed off on something Corey gave him.

He was still in the driveway when another truckload of lumber arrived. I scooted him out and then rearranged my vehicles to make room for the lumber on the RV side of the driveway. The other side was getting very crowded.

More lumber arrived in early afternoon.

They used a concrete caddy to shuttle loads of concrete to the post bases.

When he was finished, the first cement mixer arrived. Corey wasn’t too happy. He was done with the crane and had been hoping to get it out before they poured concrete around the pole bases. (My driveway is rather long and very narrow; just one vehicle at a time.) They used a concrete caddy on the bobcat to shuttle loads of concrete out to the poles on the south end.

The first cement mixer at the job site.

The second truckload was already waiting when the first finished. Corey chased the first truck out with the crane and the second truck came in. They filled in the rest of the holes and topped off the first ones.

By 4 PM, they’d erected all 40 posts and poured concrete around the post bases. I’m not sure whether they can start framing today or if they have to wait for the concrete to cure. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Want to see it for yourself? Here’s yesterday’s time-lapse. I slowed it down to 15 frames per second; each second of video corresponds to 15 minutes of time.

Next up: framing begins.

Off to a good start.

The lumber delivery truck pulled into my driveway at 6:15 AM sharp. I was already up. In fact, I was setting up my time-lapse camera on the roof of my RV.

The truck was neatly stacked with lumber. A forklift clung to the back. It didn’t look like enough lumber for a 48 x 60 foot building, but the driver assured me it was. In fact, he told me it was a lot of lumber.

The lumber truck arrived at 6:15 AM. I was awake (of course).

He didn’t waste any time offloading it and leaving it spread out on the building site. Then, without taking up my offer of coffee, he backed down the driveway the way he came and was gone.

I looked over the lumber he’d left behind — my lumber. The skeleton of my future home in a sort of kit.

As one of my Twitter friends said about this photo, “Some assembly required.”

The builders showed up less than 20 minutes later. There were 3 hispanic guys who introduced themselves and shook my hand, the owner of the company, and a bobcat with two augers. They spent about an hour moving around the lumber. Then the boss left and the workers got down to work with the auger.

A pole building utilizes post-frame construction. From Wikipedia:

Pole framing or post-frame construction (pole building framing, pole building, pole barn), is a simplified building technique adapted from the labor-intensive traditional timber framing technique. It uses large poles or posts buried in the ground or on a foundation to provide the vertical structural support and girts to provide horizontal support. The method was developed and matured during the 1930s as changes in agricultural practices, including the shift toward engine-powered farm equipment and the demand for cheaper, larger barns and storage areas. Unlike competing building methods, once the poles, girts, and rafters are put in place, much of the construction work on a pole-built structure can be handled by a single individual over the course of a month or season.

My building required 40 holes roughly 3-4 feet in diameter and 4 feet deep. The builder estimated that construction could be completed in 6 to 8 weeks. Of course, that’s just the exterior of the building; I still needed to finish my living space.

So that first day was all about digging holes. I was worried about rocks on the south side of the site. I’d been warned that although the pricing included some work with rocks, if there was a lot of rocks and they couldn’t do the digging, I’d have to pay extra for earth moving equipment to come back in and dig the holes. Extra could get into the thousands of dollars. Every extra dollar I spent on the building’s frame was a dollar that wouldn’t be available to finish the living space. Needless to say, I wanted those holes to be easy to dig.

They encountered a rock about three feet down on the first hole. The workers stopped and got tools out of their truck. I came over to watch. Angel, who seemed to be in charge of the workers, told me it didn’t seem to be a big rock. They banged away on it with a digging stick and then dug it out with shovels. And then they got the auger back in place and dug.

They had the same problem with the other south corner. Angel said it wasn’t bad, though.

The workers deal with a rock on the second hole.

And when they moved north, they didn’t hit any rocks. At all.

In fact, of the 40 holes they dug, they only hit rocks on four of them — the four south side holes.

The digging went amazingly fast. I’d estimate about 10 minutes per hole. The auger went in and filled its grooves with earth. Angel moved aside and then rotate the auger in the opposite direction to dump the earth in a pile. He made two of these piles and later used the bobcat to move the earth into my future driveway apron. They took a break for lunch at 11:30 AM. By about 2 PM, they were done with the holes.

Sometime around the middle of the day I emailed Tanya, the woman I’d been working with at the builder, to let her know how it was going. I think she was just as happy as I was that the work was going smoothly.

I had to leave at 3 PM, so I didn’t get a chance to see them finish up. I did watch on the time-lapse, though. After finishing the holes and moving that dirt, they spent the rest of the day moving the posts around. By 4:15 PM, they were gone.

The project is definitely off to a good start. Even today, as I type this, I can’t believe how much they’ve gotten done in less than 90 minutes. A crane is pulling down my driveway right now. You can read about that tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s yesterday’s time-lapse.