CHAINSAW PALACE

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We installed the ridge beam in the traditional way and added the rafters in pairs so that pressure on both sides of the house remained constant. I learned to make a rafter hanger from some scrap wood and used a C-clamp to keep the holder in place. By using the holder, I could hold the rafter while nailing it to the ridge beam.

In fact, I could nail two or three rafters without having to come down from the ridge beam. Sheathing for the roof is much like the sub-flooring plywood. It is easier to buy and install it than to try to cut the boards and nail them in place. It can be done however, by anyone with the time and energy and trees to complete the job. I felt that we were going to need virtually every usable tree we had at this point, and I chose to momentarily sacrifice our moneysaving goals for expediency.

From other roofing projects I had learned that I could install nearly all the roofing from inside the house. When rafters are in place and the dormers, if any, have been framed, it is easy to install one course of sheathing and building paper. Then, with a temporary floor laid over the joists or girders, erect a scaffold work surface and lean over the top edge of the sheathing to nail up the shingles.

When the first course of sheathing has been covered, it is time to nail up the second course and roof it in the same manner. All of one slope could be done this way, and then on the other side all but the final four feet can be roofed from inside. We put up dormer siding completely from inside, while dozens of people stopped by to tell us it could not be done that way.

When the roof was installed, we turned our attention to chinking the logs. We didn't use the more traditional mud and horsehair mix; we went modern instead and used one of the newer vinyl products that can be applied with a putty knife and which dries to a hard rubber consistency and will expand and contract as the house heats and cools.

It was now chimney time, and we chose to have a woodstove in the basement and a fireplace in the family room, which meant two flues and a chimney 30 feet high. We used the traditional cement block (filled with concrete) structure and then covered it with rock. We had an abundance of flat rocks in our creek, but everything was covered with brush and debris, and we were forced to buy stone in the nearby mountains. This was one of the few expenses that could have been avoided, but we felt (and still feel) that we made the right choice under the circumstances.

A $700 Door!

When we priced doors, we quickly decided to make our own. Store-bought models were either outlandishly expensive or of such low quality that we would not have them in our house. And we found that we could make our own with very little difficulty. To make a strong and attractive door, we cut 2 x 6 tongue-and groove timbers. No, to be more accurate, we cut spline-and-groove lumber.

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