So. You’ve been thinking: What the heck have they been up to?!
Answer:
So much, and yet, not so much. If you’ve been keeping up on the YouTube vlog, you pretty much know what’s what, but for those for you who haven’t discovered it or don’t have a means of playing it (or perhaps worse, have been trying to use the closed captioning provided by YouTube-so funny) you’re likely totally in the dark. Unless you’ve been hiding somewhere in the back yard. Then you probably know more than us.
What is now sitting in our RV port is looking super, super house-like! I mean, it has walls and window-holes (shhh) and house wrap and roof sheathing(!!!! You may not care- we’re thrilled) and this past week it has even got it’s underlayment (complete with Grace Shield) in preparation for the super-awesome roof we’ve ordered.
True, it doesn’t look that earth-shatteringly different from our last entry. The thing that has gotten us, and the thing you really can’t underestimate, is thinking and planning ahead. If you are completely new to construction (as I am- Ryan has a guesstimate as to what’s what) you have to learn eeeevvverything. And in the end, most of the time that you spend working on a given task, thinking you’re doing it right, you’re actually creating something that’s now just waiting to screw you over… months down the line… without warning. No pressure 😉
We hit a bit of a wall (okay it was more like quick-sand) back in July. We muddled through till August and by September we were beat. We took some time away from the project and cooled off. We thought about starting the electrical when the siding was far beyond what we had budgeted for. But then you run the risk of nailing through all of your wiring. We thought about moving onto the roof. Every roofing option was either exceedingly expensive (the thing about small quantities for small houses, is that they don’t have enough of a profit margin to interest sellers- if you can go in with a group of tiny builders to buy en mass that would better) too heavy (Tile, Slate, Asphalt- also terrible for the environment) or terribly impractical (just add Wood Shingles to the last list).
But with the muddling and fuddling we’ve finally gotten to the point where we are able to crank it out again. Well…. that’s the plan at any rate. 🙂
We’ve had some super-awesome craigslist finds-which you can’t really count on finding, but are fantastic when you do.
$350 Cedar Siding (approximately enough for our house…. may have to stretch it with shingles) A-MAZ-ZING! This should have run us at least $2,000+.
$350 Used On Demand Marine Water Heater New-$1,450 Whoop!
$150 Engineered Wood Floor- Would have loved solid, but it wasn’t to be. Picked this up in Las Vegas while visiting Ryan’s Sister and Brother-in-Law. 🙂
$450 Acrylic Clawfoot Tub. New from $1249. Cannot convey how pleased we are with this find! It was a little beyond our shower budget, but it solves so many worrying water-damage issues, we’re stoked!
Annnnddd….. here are some shots of what we have been up to.
The inside of that ever-so-troublesome gable dormer. Just don’t. Can you see where we had to frankenstein in the rafters to get their pitch to match the pitch of the other roof? GAH!
My greatest accomplishment in the compound-angle world of Windows. Yeah, that’s one solid sill (which is the outside bit that sheds water, the inside bit is the stool) with a 15* bevel on the back (where the stool will nail in) and on the face that meets the wall. HA! Eat that. (And no, it’s not mounted all skiwhompus like that. It’s just chilling up off the ground to avoid rain while I make its guts)
The fascia boards all stained and ready to go.
Here is the best way I have come up with for venting the baffles at the blocking. Other people drill holes in the blocking, but this made way more sense to me. If you’re more friendly with large drill insert, then by all means, go that way. I’m more comfy with the table saw. Bevel the blocking to the angle of your roof, insert on top of top plate between all rafters. PSSST- Do this before you put on your roof sheathing. 😉
We’re baffled! So. Some thoughts. Baffles are spacers that allow air to move up through the soffit vents (a soffit is the underside of a roof, usually on the outside of the building) and out of the ridge vents without being blocked my insulation. In small spaces it is imperative to have good moisture control. We are using sheep’s wool for our insulation as it wound up being about the same price as the foam-type, naturally fire resistant and it is one of the few insulations that allow moisture to breathe and disperse (great for any area that needs some extra moisture defense) We got ours through Oregon Shepard and we are thrilled with the product! They even sell it by ‘wall’ if you just want to do the steamy side of your house. Now, because the wool allows moisture to breathe, you need somewhere for that moisture to go. If it’s in the walls it can breathe upwards (towards your baffles) and/or outwards, through the sheathing, the housewrap (its designed for this) and up and out the airspace in your rainwall. (You are making a rainwall, right?) Sooo… if our insulation is allowing for moisture movement, why in the world would you use a non permeable material for your baffle? I don’t get it. There are allegedly some cardboard baffles out there, but I couldn’t find any… and they say that carboard leads to rot, because it fills with moisture. But what is going to happen to that moisture if it can’t get out through the ridge vent? Is it going to puddle on my top plate? Will that rot? Will it try to work its way through the walls? Will the housewrap be okay with added moisture?
Anyway. I cut little holes in them.
You really want your whole roof to have air movement behind it for icedams, moisture control and general roof health. But the baffles don’t fit in all of our rafter spaces. Sooooo… I made my own! I got this fabric from my sister (who got it from Oregon Shepherd for her build, but never used it) which is super lightweight and breathable. A few staples, a premade baffle (to hold the shape) and voila! Continuous air movement! Yay!
Ain’t that pretty? 🙂