Finished upstairs flooring

Upstairs view of the finished floor, sanded and varnished. There are three coats of varnish on the hemlock floor. You can't quite slide on it with your socks (which is probably a good thing), but it is a nice finish.

Francois did a nice job, filling in the knots and some of the gaps that opened in the joints (it's what hemlock does).

Finished railings and floors

Here's a look at the finished railings with the finished staircase and the finished floors. The railings, stairs and window trims are ash that was cut in the woods (click here!).  and finished and installed by Willy the timberframer. Good view in this picture of how it all works together. The yellowishness of the hemlock timbers and ceiling planks matches the lighter birch floor planks, the knots in the timbers go with the knots in the floor planks, and the bright hues of the ash are brought in the brighter floorboards. The floor brings it all together.

I sound like an art critic.

The flooring detail shows how the lower grade wood actually works better in the farmhouse. The higher grade hardwood would have made it look like a concert hall or museum.

Wood flooring isn't the ideal covering for a hydronic slab. It does not conduct heat very well, and it requires a high-grade OSB subfloor to keep it stable with the expansion and contraction as well as the high humidity associated with a hydroninc slab. When Francois (the current tenant of the house)  is  not supplementing with wood, he needs to keep the temperature of the slab at 79 or 80 degrees F to keep things comfortable, about 5 degrees F higher than the recommended temperature for a "naked" floor.

One last finishing touch to go: the floorboards. We've got some hardwood at the sawyer that we'll use for this. It will probably be ash like the staircase.

Floors ... at last!

We finally had the floors installed downstairs and they look great. We had them installed on house II, but decided at the last minute to have part of the hardwood installed on house I.

We chose 2 1/4'' yellow birch in horizon grade (that's actually 3rd grade) from BSL (hardwood floor company from the Gaspe). This grade has knots in it, but that's okay because because the timbers also have knots in them, and the multihued daeker planks bring  out the hues in the knots of all the other wood finishing we have.

Yellow birch (as the name implies) has a nice yellowish hue that matches the Hermlock timbers. It's also cheaper than the other hardwood species.

The only thing left to do now is the bedroom whcih will be done with black cherry from our own woods.

Staircase II: Half done

It looks like the staircase is going to be one of those things in the house that will come out more beautiful than we ever imagined. Here's a detailed view of the landing. The false stringers along the back wall meet with the baseboard of the landing at a 45 degree angle. Willy had actually intended for the stringer to move down to the landing, but cut it too short and had to improvise the joint. It actually looks better than the original plan. You can see the profile of the baseboards with the pieces leaning against the wall at right. 

 The second image shows a view similar to the one given in the previous posting, but with a better view of the false stringers (along the side of the upper staircase) and of the the upstairs windows. After looking at the unfinished staircase for months, it's good to see the finished product taking shape.

If you look carefully, you'll notice checks (cracks) in the posts and the beams. This is what hemlock does as it dries. It actually tightens and strengthens the frame. The staircase, though, should not do this. 

A Handsome Looking House

Here's a nice winter scene of the house. The snow has been pretty unrelenting this winter. I think we've had four days without snow. A scene like this makes me feel like I'm wasting heat. The solar collectors on the roof are covered snow and the sun is shining brightly. You can see the telescopic brush for clearing snow off the collectors leaning against the wall on the porch next to the door.

Finished painting

Here's a look at the upstairs following the drywall, mudding, and painting. It pretty much sums up all the nice work and contributions: the timber frame from Willy Lemaitre from Sutton, Alex Courvoisier (from Dunham) assembly job, the ceiling planks from Nicholas Hamel in the Beauce, the windows from Elite courtesy of the Liptak family near Ottawa, the flooring planks sawn up by Martial Marois in Granby, and finally the mudding and painting by Luc Tremblay in Frelighsburg to bring out the colours in grains in all this wood.

With the afternoon sun provided by mother natures, it makes for a really nice picture from the staircase.

Tongue and groove flooring

The flooring is almost done upstairs. This shows the 2'' tongue and groove hemlock planks on the timber rafters. They double as the floor upstairs and the ceiling for the first floor. This wood was kiln dried in Cowansville then planed and dried in Granby. Not drying it would have meant cracks opening up between planks as the wood dried.

The 2'' thickness (okay 1 13/16'' after planing) makes for a solid floor. It also reinforces the frame. When the big bad wolf blew down the wooden house, it was not a timber frame.

Siding

Here is another load of wood from the sawyer in Granby. This time it is hemlock siding. It's been drying in the woods for a year and a half now, so it is semi dry. This is ideal because it won't split when nailed to the house like dry hemlock, but won't shrink like green wood. Most pieces are longer than Alex's trailer, which makes the trailer fish tail if you go too fast, especially down hill whe the full load pushes the truck. We take it very slow.

We actually had to make two trips to get this rabbeted beveled siding. Each 6'' x 1 1/2" board was cut diagonally into a wedge and then contoured to make a ship lapped wedge. We're storing it in the woodshed to keep the elements of it until it is ready to be nailed to the house. The plan is to keep the hemlock natural and let it go grey. Hemlock lasts forever as siding. All the old barns you see in the Townships are made of hemlock. The old timers knew their wood.

Finished porch

Finally finished the porch (only the metal roofing covers remain). The porch serves the practical purpose of preventing water from dripping on your head as you exit the door (or worse, getting walloped with snow sliding off the roof), keeping the summer sun from overheating the house, and giving you a nice place to sit, rain or shine. The ends of the porch are flat so that you can leave the porch without getting dripped on the rain.

We went with 6x6 posts which aren't from our woods. I thought we could use 4x4 posts as we have with our current balcony, so I sawed up a bunch of those last summer. However, Will recommended 6x6 posts. Thinking about snow sliding onto the porch from our rather large roof
convinced me to go witht the more solid 6x6 posts. The rest of the porch is straight out of the back of the property. It's hard to see in these pictures, but the wood is unplaned and unsanded. If you click on the imagery, you can see the rough texture. My philosophy on porches is that sitting on them should make you feel like you are in a farm in a western (one with good carpenters). We will eventually sand the floor planks once the project is complete and people are done trekking dirt and construction boots across it. We'll probably seal it to protect it from rain, snow, and sun. Hemlock is somewhat resistant to rot, but it is a soft wood and prone to scuffs.

Here's a detail of the timber ends showing how the rafter rests on the rafter plate . The roof actually overhangs the rafter plate, which in turn overhangs the last post resting on the deck. Also visible are the 1'' planks that act both as roof and ceiling. I thought I'd sand these, but others say they like them rough sawed. Great! Less work!

The artiste returns

William (timber framer and ébéniste) was measuring the kitchen for cabinets last week when I mentioned the porch going up. He mumbled something about doing the notching for the porch. Later in the week, I mumbled something to Alex about Willy doing the notching, and Alex mumbled something about Willy doing the notching on site. Well, the deck was going up the morning of June 2, so I called Willy on the evening of June 1 to confirm ... too much mumbling going on ... Willy hadn't heard about it.

Fortunately, he came out and did the notching, bringing all his tools with him. It means that the frame of the porch will be as nice as the frame inside. When we got back from delivering our first load of planks to Cowansville, Will was halfway though the job. We got one shot of him in action, and one of him looking at the camera. I didn't get pictures of all the specialized tools he had along, but you can see his giant chisel and giant circular saw here. It's quite a specialized craft with specialized tools.

Unfortunately, we did not get the porch up and will have to wait until next week before we see the final product. I can hardly wait.

Moving wood to the driers II

Spent Friday loading up the truck and trailer for the drier. Here's the full load, which I loaded all by myself. This was way harder than doing it as a team of three. Note the posture indicating that I really wished I'd taken a water and lunch break instead of working for 4 1/2 hours straight. The planks are smaller than the hemlock, but they make for a heavy load. I had to floor the truck to get it up and over the hill on the way to Cowansville ... and, yes, we did have a little orange flag at the end of the lumber sticking outback of the trailer.

I was desperately tired and needed help unloading the wood, and to keep me focused on the drive to Cowansville. Here's Lisa at the driers with all the wood delivered so far. She's sitting on the hemlock. The rest is all hardwood. We were both pretty zonked afterward so we had a pizzaghetti dinner at Frelighsburg for dinner.

Installing the windows

We installed the windows in early April. There was a nice three week stretch of warm, dry weather that let us get this done. Papa came out to take a few pictures and got some really nice ones. The first picture gives an idea of how the windows were installed. Francois (shown here talking to the owner) shimmed them into the openings before sealing the holes with foam insulation. The picture also shows a full length view of the interior part of the chimney, how nicely the light plays with the yellow hemlock ceiling, and how it looked before we had the floor slab poured.

With the snow melted, Papa also managed to get a new pespetive on how the house interacts with surrounding landscape. This view is from the south side where there is a small pond along a path that leads to the sugar house in the back woods of the property. It's one of my favorite views of the house. When the leaves come out, it disappears!

Cutting up the logs

Here I am helping the sawyer cut up the logs into boards. It was very dirty work, especially when things got wet and rainy. The hemlock sawdust in particular stained my T-shirts into a reddish brown tie-die. The logs are rolled manually from the stack onto a hydrolic lift on the side of the saw (shown here). The log is then hoisted onto the trailer. The sawyer then moves the blade down the length of log, slicing off first the bark, then one board at a time. I then removed the boards and stacked them. The shown log here is ash, which will go into the steps of the staircase. Ash is among the toughest of the hardwoods, and good for stairs and flooring. We may also use it for countertops, although Willy (timber framer and cabinet maker) might need to special order some to get the dimensions he needs.

It was a grinding, hard lifting and exhausting, but the sight of stacked boards at the end of the day was worth it. The hemlock was particularly water laden and heavy as lead. The biggest boards. shown here, were a few 2''x12" board, 17 feet in length, and we nearly killed ourselves stacking it. It was also a challenge fitting them into the trailer for transport to the driers. The plan is to dry them, plane and sand them nicely, then have the sawyer cut them into tongue and groove planks that fit together snugly. They will make for nice plank flooring on the second floor of the timber frame, while the opposite side will act as a nice plank ceiling for the bedroom and mezzanine area. They will also act to solidify the structure of the frame one they are fitted together (the frame will be overbuilt by a large margin. Also shown here are some shorter planks, some 4x4 posts to hold up porch roofs, and some 1'' black cherry (the cherry, of course, is on the top).

We cut most of the hemlock into 1 1/2'' x 6" planks of varying lengths. The lesser quality boards went into the southern porch, but most will eventually go into siding. These will be cut into triangular ship-lap boards these don't need to be dried. We still hven't decided whether to let them weather naturally (into a grey barnlike finish) or to protect the wood with varathane an retain the wooden color.

Moving wood to the driers

Used my pick-up today with a trailer from Alex to move the wood drying in the forest to Sechoirs Cowansville, where they will dry the wood to a uniform humidity. Alex was very good about lending us his trailer, and even adapted the brake cables so they could be attached to the pick-up. I was very pleased with the performance of the truck and trailer. My expression and posture here clearly indicates that this Chevy 1500 hauls ass, and that you should not mess with us.

Drying the wood means that it can be planed sanded, and then cut (into boards for flooring, furniture, cabinetry, trim) without danger of the finished wood warping or shrinking. Lisa and I had help in loading and unloading from Don Bissonnette, who likes lending a hand with do-it-yourself projects like this. Here we are unloading planks of cherry in the yard. The Sechoir people will move it with forklifts into the huge driers shown in the background and stack it professionally.

Here, Don and I measures and count the wood. We would like to get it all back in the end, so it helps to count it before you leave it. I believe this is the first load, which consisted of ash and cherry. The ash (whitish colour) will go into steps for staircases, whereas the black cherry (redish color) will likely go into flooring.

Rainy day project

Tuesday was a rainy day, so the crew worked indoors insulating the kitchen. They put Roxul batts in the walls and finished it with the insulating board shown here. No picture of the open walls, unfortunately.

Revised wall system

The builder made a few alterations to the wall system on site. In particular, the sill system has been altered. Flooring and base boards are new to the design as well. The extra insulation needed for the foundation needed for the heated floor slab complicate the design a little. Obviously, styrofoam is not going to support the wall trusses.

On the other hand, the wall trusses are supported by the timber frame. It's still nice to have part of the wall trusses over the concrete foundation. The southern wall will feature a 4'9'' wide awning to allow full sun on the windows in the winter but little or no sun in the summer. To support the awning, 2'' x 8'' wall studs will be added in line with the trusses.

The photo shows a cross section of the wall system, including the sill board. The shiplapped siding will come down over the foundation insulation and will be sealed at the bottom (seal not shown) to prevent moisture infiltration.

The view from the loft

This photo gives a good idea of the view from the loft. Click on the photo and you can see Mount Sutton more clearly. It kind of blends in with the sky because of the light.

Looking at this picture, it's very tempting to change the plans and just make a huge picture window to the second floor wall. A lot of the view will be obliterated by walls, but the windows will be large enough so that you can see Mount Sutton once the poplars are cut down if you place yourself.

I'm also tempted to put a small rosetta window in the middle of the triangle at the peak of the wall.

Finished ceiling

The crew finished putting up the ceiling and roof trusses yesterday. It's starting to feel like a real house. We now have to wait for a nice dry day and a full crew to install the roof insulation, sheathing, and house wrap. The house site is at least protected from the next snow storm.

In the meantime it's now really cozy under the ceiling. It feels a little more like a barn than a house with the winter weather and dampness. You do get an idea of the loftiness of the space. The second picture is actually taken from under the cathedral area in the living room looking towards the second floor.

Hint of a roof

By lunchtime today, the builders had gotten about 1/3 of a way up the south side of the roof, which you can see in this picture if you look carefully. The tongue and groove ceiling planks were by and large straight, despite their 16-ft length, and fit together well. There were some slightly warped planks, which Joey and Gord cut into 8' halves.

Although the hemlock was very dry, there was minimal splitting when they nailed them down to the rafters. The planks are actually reddish in hue, contrasting with the timbers which appear to be more yellow/green, depending on the light. I didn't get a final picture because it was too dark, but if you click on the image you might get an idea of what the ceiling will look like.

Digging out

The builders were back today, so Lisa and I started digging out after a month of a quiet worksite. Here I am digging out the bedroom. It was cold today (-9 C) and a little windy on the roof, but the guys showed up and started laying down the ceiling planks.

We had a lot of snow over the Christmas break.
It was quite a dig.