Beams, Beams, they're good for the heart...

I hope these blog titles entertain you, I try to please my 5 readers. I put a lot of thought into my puns.

Anyway, we've been putting up some more beams. They FINALLY replaced the beams that were damaged, due to sitting out in the dirt and water. So, we were able to get all but one beam into place this past weekend.

This is the longest beam, at 23 feet. Adam and his dad lifted it up onto the walls one piece at a time, then used the palm nailer to tie them together in place. These beams are HEAVY, and they did it all by themselves (no help from equipment).

The wood is also very hard, so the nails didn't really want to go in. It took awhile, but we eventually got it up, in place, and nailed together.

The other end of the beam is hanging off them beam over the laundry room.

They also put up a rather long beam over the garage. This one didn't have any extra walls to help hold it up - another difficult one.

We placed two more beams over the dining room and foyer.

While Adam and his dad were doing heavy lifting and nailing beams together, I got Clint to help me clean up the place. We have hardly swept anything since we've poured the concrete (2 and a half months ago). There was also piles of wood and bent nails everywhere. After clearing away some wood - to have clear footing for a ladder - and finding a dead snake, I knew it was time to do something. So, I bought a push broom and set to work organizing wood, picking up nails, throwing away scraps, and sweeping out debree. It was surprisingly a lot of work, but I'm happy with the results.

There is one pile of wood, you can get to the plans table, and the floor is clear - makes me feel MUCH better!

We piled up all the wood around the house into one pile - it was scattered everywhere and many pieces of wood still had nails sticking out - YIKES! I love our yard, isn't it gonna be great?!

Our bedroom. I really should of done a 'before' picture - because you wouldn't believe the amound of leaves, dirt, sawdust, nails, and wood lying around.

Here's my sweet husband. I am so thankful for all the hard work he's put into this house!

This last picture is from Sunday. Adam and I came out after church to get the last beam into place. We took a ton of measurements, to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. We found our problem - the truss was built wrong. Here is our picture to document that the vertical members are about an inch and a half off. This is not good, because there is a pony wall with roof trusses resting on it, above the vertical members. But, we'll see what becomes of it. We managed to get the beam on top of the walls, but not nailed together. We hope to get a lot more material out on site this week and get this framing done soon!