Waitress Builds Fortress
(Page 4 of 5)
April/May 2004
By Dorothy Ainsworth
All went well. Kirt helped me erect the framing members one at a time, fastening the vertical logs to the floor with 12-inch pole-barn spikes. Then we placed the 18-foot horizontal logs with a rented lift, slid the tenons into their respective mortises, and drove the woodfastening pegs home. Squealing with delight, we ran off for pizza and beer. It was Halloween, and our "skeleton" stood eerily in the moonlight.
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For the next few days, Kirt manned the lift below while I hammered in rebar above (20 feet up on rented scaffolding). Nine-by-9-inch ridgepoles and rafter plates, perched atop their upright supports, swayed in the breeze.
Until each half-lap joint was secured with spikes we didn't feel safe; when we raised a beam, it raised our hair. Tension was high. Affectionate bickering now and then revealed a little cayenne pepper in our salad of love!
We stabilized the structure with 10 pairs of 4-by-10-inch rafters on 4-foot centers. They were joined together at a 6:12 roof pitch over the ridgepole and gusseted into place. At the overhang end, I predrilled holes and drove rebar into each rafter, down through the top plate and into a log. This method eliminated the need for a bird's mouth (a notch cut into a rafter so that it sits supported on the top plate).
Kirt was busy with his career, so now I was on my own, and I welcomed the challenge. For the next three months I worked on the roofs—all four of them. Because 2-by-6-inch tongue-and-groove pine sat on top of the rafters to create the vaulted ceilings, I had to build a grid on top of that roof to receive insulation, plywood, tar paper and metal. Every day was spent aardvarking around on my hands and knees, or limping back and forth with one foot higher than the other. Like a drunken sailor, even on solid ground I favored a gimp on my starboard side. Sometimes, to avoid the sun, I would work at night with a flashlight strapped to my forehead; I must have looked like a firefly. Mercilessly exposed to the elements, roofers are unsung heroes in the construction world.
I methodically put up the walls, one log at a time, and spiked them in place. To save my wrists for the cafe, I gripped the hammer with both hands and pounded away. I swapped the log ends alternately (big end up, big end down) to even out the taper and keep the walls plumb, and set each log 2 inches over the edge of the bottom plate, for a drip edge.
Next came the 36 windows and nine doors, to button up the place. I built the doors from tongue-and-groove pine and the window frames from cedar.
With only hand tools and a band saw, I had to call on friends Merle and Ivan (master craftsmen) to make the fancy cuts. Awning hardware opened rows of east and west windows for cross ventilation.
Toward the Finish Line
To save money, I picked up my huge order of double-paned glass in my old Ford pickup (four trips!) and summoned Kirt to help unload and lift the heavy windows into place. While he pressed the fixed panes (some of them 5 by 3 feet) against my prepared stops, I secured them all around with 2-by-2s. No cracks, no shards, no gaping wounds; that was reason enough to go out for a Chinese dinner!
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