beams up (scotty)

firstly, may i apologise for the pun-title, there's absolutely no excuse!

ok now on to business.....

we decided a while back that the first floor (on which the living room and all of the bedrooms are situated) needed additional support and so 'Roger the wood dude' brought us some Scots Pines which we then de-barked and cut to (rough) size.

since the floor had been levelled/laid downstairs we thought we'd better get the supports in.

here's one end of the ground floor before we started:



you can see the pipes for the heating/plumbing that have been laid too as well as the drainage for the shower (the square in the middle).

almost half way through:



the photographs don't do justice to just how heavy these beams are.

keep in mind that each of them is 4+ metres (12 ft) long and about 40cm (1.5 ft) in diameter and solid (green) wood.

also.....we were lifting everything between just the three of us and with no machine/powered assistance.

we used an old fashioned block and chain (tackle) which we fed through the floor boards of the upper floor.

here's the set-up:



this is how it looked when we were done:



and from the other end of the building:



the beams are pinned together using hand-carved hawthorn pegs and the uprights were hammered into place using a good old fashioned sledge-hammer.

to say we're pleased is an understatement - it looks beautiful. as with all of the other aspects of the build that we've been pleased with as soon as we were finished the new additions looked as if they'd always been there - very satisfying.

in other news.....

- spring is taking hold with the forest getting greener and lusher with every passing day.

- we built the stone window ledges for three of the upstairs windows.

- we've now started the internal walls for downstairs (update to come soon).

- the plywood for the half-pipe should be with us by the middle of next week and so the ramp should be progressing soon.

cheers, gairy.