House Day 22 - Wednesday Is Truss Day - Part 1

The first truss went up in the darkness at sunrise. The sky was a pretty blue - no clouds - 10% chance of rain.

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We insisted on trusses that formed a bonus room. In the attic there will be a room 60 feet long - 20 feet wide - 10 feet high. It will have a 3/4 inch plywood floor. I call it the dance hall. Overhead will be liquid foam in place insulation. Under the attic floor will be all the heat and AC ductwork - wires - gas pipes - etc.  If one had to - they could crawl in an 18 inch high area between the attic floor and the downstairs ceiling. The attic will not be finished - but someday someone could put several rooms up there. 

Truss Day has to be the most exciting day of the project. We are going to finally get to get the full shape of the house. We have plan pictures - side views - front views - back views - we even have and artist rendering - but nothing lives up to the final three dimensional final shape - even if you only have one eye.

It started before the sun was up. I had to go to the dentist from 9 to 9:30 - but what we are seeing is art work. Success has a million fathers - failure is an orphan. Right now - this father is starting to brag. I designed the outside - Lulu designed the inside. We specifically did not hire an architect because many of them we interviewed told us we could not do what we wanted. Finally we found Bill Richardson - a very experienced draftsman. He is an expert on the building code - namely what you can and cannot do  legally. We told him exactly what we wanted. He drew it up making sure it would not fall apart.

Specifically - Bill was told that all windows will be the same size and evenly space around the house. His job was to make sure that the walls inside did not run into the windows. Making it even harder - we wanted to make sure that the plantation shutters on the windows should be able to open flush with the wall. That detail kept Bill very busy.

Lulu insisted on several things. She wanted the kitchen - dining room - and living room open. She wanted a fireplace between the dining and living rooms that was open to both rooms. He had to appease her and also make sure that the front and back door lined up - that there were the same number of windows on each side of the door - that the front and back looked the same - the sides looked the same - and absolutely nothing went thru the roof - no vents - pipes - wires - dormers - etc. Also every bedroom had to be a corner room - with two windows on each side of the corner.

Then - we added on top of this the Americans With Disabilities Act. All doors had to be 3 feet wide. All floors had to be flat with no thresholds. You  had to be able to drive a wheel chair into the bathroom and into the showers. The showers had to be designed with no doors or curtains.

We planned the place - Bill put it down on paper - and now Gary is tweaking it as we go. So it is design by committee - a very small committee. The city approved the pans every step of the way.

Gary is making the trusses "triple-thick" by the stairwell.

Josh Wells reminds me of those pictures of worker building the Empire State Building

Here is a rare picture Gary Wayne hammering right handed.

The space between these two trusses will be the stairwell.

That bonus room upstairs will be 60 x 20 x 10. There will be a top hat on it to make a peaked roof.

The end cap has two openings for 3 x 6 windows - the same size as downstairs. All windows will be treated the same - interior plantation shutters. 

Today was hard hat day on the job with the crane lifting those heavy trusses.