After the 2-3 inches of rain we’ve had in the last few weeks, we are pretty anxious to get the roof on and dried in to keep all the unnecessary water off our floor. This weekend, good friends Luke and Emily visited to help work on the house.
Ridge beam: The plans we purchased called for a micrallam ridge beam, which is an engineered beam that would be long, straight and in one piece. After shopping around at a few lumber yards with no success of finding a beam 6 inches tall, Kyle decided to make his own. Micrallam beams are intended to carry weight, so a 28 foot long beam like we are needing would be built at 10+ inches tall to carry the load of the roof that would normally have to free span that entire length. Kyle’s best estimate was that the micrallam was called for in the plans because it needed to be straight but wouldn’t carry much weight. So what he ended up doing was used 3 2x6x18 engineered timberstrand studs, which are typically used in tall buildings where long studs are necessary. He cut one of these studs in half and spliced them together to make a 28′ beam that he needed, yielding a straight 28′ 3×6 ridge beam.
Dog-house dormers: We decided make the dog house dormers in our second loft a little bit wider than we initially planned, which in the end created a more spacious loft and will allow easier entrance to the loft via stairs.
Roof: The roofline would have been simple if we would have just stuck with the nice A-frame, 12-12 pitch roof. But of course we had to make it more complicated! This is a great example of one of the many times in tiny house building where you run across something you hadn’t planned out specifically. Our major goal for the weekend was framing the dormers and setting all the rafters. This started by visualizing what we wanted the roofline to look like, creating a plan of how to get there, and then finding the beginning point – like which piece to put in first. Luke and Kyle spent a good two hours on this process and by lunch time, they had one side framed out. The rest went much quicker with less thinking and more doing. I must say, I am pretty impressed with how it turned out! By the end of the weekend, we have all the rafters in place, loft number 1 fully sheathed, and half of the middle section of the roof sheathed. Almost dry!
This week I am thankful for good friends to share life with – friends who we’ve grown with in the past, live separate lives now, but who are still invested in our lives and care enough to spend a weekend helping us on our house. We love these guys and are thankful we can pick up our relationship from when we last saw one another.
I’m also thankful for front porch swings, chirping birds, coffee, and cool summer mornings. There’s just something about that combination that makes me fall in love with Jesus and his creation. I am most looking forward to when we add our front porch on our tiny house. It might not be until we move it to where we plan to live, but I can picture myself enjoying many mornings with Jesus there (or in front of the big picture window in the great room).
Finally, I’m thankful for creativity. It amazed me this weekend to see Luke and Kyle figure out how to shape the roof line around the dog house dormers. God has gifted them with creative, practical minds that are making a beautiful home. The Creator of the universe has gifted his children with so much creativity – he made us in him image after all. I hope that as we use that creativity to build a house, that it points people towards Jesus.
Until next time,
~Danae
Schmidts: Life on Mission 