After the concrete was down we had to have a few days to recover. The concrete needed a few days to cure hard enough we wouldn't harm it walking on it and standing walls anyway. Wood framing was the part of this rebuild that I knew well, and I knew it was going to be moderately complicated, and A LOT of manual labor. I spoke with a friend of mine who I worked with years ago framing. He had some good advice on building, and some new methods that we didn't use often when we framed back in the 90's. He loaned some nail guns and other tools for us to use. With everything ready to go, I put together the material list, and an approximate timeline.
I gave some thought on how to rally everyone again to start the long haul. Everyone seemed excited to start the wood framing, but this wasn't going to be like the concrete. we suffered through torturous weather, nasty work conditions, and labored until we could barely stand on the concrete, but once it was poured we were done. The wood framing would have it's own challenges and it wouldn't take so much intense labor because we worked at our own pace. With winter only 5 months out though, we couldn't just take our sweet time. This structure had to be weather tight by October 1st. What could I possibly say that would get everyone motivated, and keep them motivated until we had the structure closed? These are still kids ranging from 9 to 13, getting them motivated for even a simple task is hard. Derek was working nights, so his physical labor wasn't often available, but he contributed monetarily. Michelle worked nights in the ER so she couldn't help physically either.
On June 7th 2013 I stopped after work and loaded all the lumber needed to build the basement. I was supposed to be met there by Michelle and the kids but before they showed up I had loaded all of the lumber onto carts. They were there to help load the trailer, but this was off to a bad start already. For the hour drive home I thought more about what I could say that would get everyone excited but I was coming up with nothing. I got home and ran extension cords for night work. The kids had built a table and saw horses to stack lumber on the day before so it was actually kind of nice not to have to bend over to do everything. We laid down some of the sil plates and called it a night. The next day we were all up by the time the sun started to rise. Troy showed up about 7:00 and we were hard at it. The kids had never done this before so there was some learning, and some slow starts on portions but all in all it was a good day. By the end of Saturday most of the basement framing was up. On Sunday my nephew Stephen came by to lend a hand. By the end of the day, we had completed the stick framing of the basement. All that was left was to put the sheathing on. The second floor would start as soon as the lumber showed up. If we were going to keep the time line and get in before winter, we had to be framing the roof in August. That was just a little more than a month away.
Below is a photo I took on the way to work Monday morning. We had a long way to go, but we made some really good progress in just a weekend. Not too bad for an old guy and 3 kids.
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