See what I mean? It's huge. Beautiful, but huge. And it's getting closer to being completely framed!! There are all kinds of cool angles that play off each other. We like how it looks more and more.
They had to finish sheathing the cupola, which required a bit of ingenuity. Kevin sat in the window...
... waaaay up in the window...
And Sam took a ladder to the roof so that he could get to the roof of cupola. He needed a bit of help reaching the ladder! :)
Once Sam was in place on top of the cupola, he and Kevin maneuvered the sheathing into place...
... and Sam held it while Kevin nailed.
Then Sam nailed the parts that Kevin couldn't reach.
It's looking very cool in there. In this next picture you can see the door that leads from the cupola to the roof. What I really like are the temporary cross-beams, though: all those Xes. They help to keep the whole stairwell structure square until all the sheathing is in.
Next, they had to put another huge beam up.
You see that metal hangar waaaay at the tippy-top of this next picture? That's where they needed to get that huge beam!
So Kevin got into place (a place, by the way, that you could never convince me to get into!)
Here you can see the distance between the two hangars that the beam needs to span...
Then Sam got into place on top of the cupola, having tied a strap to the edge of the beam. The plan was that Sam would lift one end of the beam by the strap until it was more or less parallel at Kevin's feet, at which point Kevin would lift his end into place, while Sam maneuvered his end into place with the strap.
It worked amazingly well.
So then they got that beam all nailed into place... (you can just see Sam's hat on the far right- he's standing on the platform that they built.)
The view 'up' is pretty cool from the living room, now! (Part of that will be closed, soon)
Sam admired the view and checked the weather the following morning!
And then they built the last wall for the cupola. It's got a nifty little 'window' in it so you can look aaaaall the way down.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but this wall was hard to build because since the roof angles slightly (so rain will drip down the back of the house) each stud in the wall had to be cut to a slightly different length. It is perfect. Sam keeps tugging on it and saying "this is solid!"
Next, a mini "floor" had to be built at a right angle to the huge beam they'd just lifted into place. This will look like a shelf under the last cupola window... it's needed for crazy housing code reasons. Sam has explained to me several times why it's needed, but I can never remember. So Sam held a temporary supporting board in place with a beam, while Kevin nailed it in.
Here you can see the supporting board better.
The next day, Sam went to work preparing the sides of the 'floor'...
I helped him get one board attached under the window...
Then Sam checked that everything was still looking right...
... and then he took a break and admired the view!
When I got home the next day, they'd gotten all the platforms for the stairwell in! Now all we're missing is stairs to connect them!
They'd also put in the remaining cupola windows on one side.
And they'd sheathed the wall in the cupola...
It looks so cool!
Then, the following day, they built the mini wall above the stairwell, and sheathed that, and the ceiling, too. If you compare this next picture to the last one, it gives you an idea of where this ceiling and wall are, above your head as you go up the stairs ...
They also finished the 'floor'/shelf under that window in the cupola (that wall perpendicular to it is the one they just sheathed).
So now you can really get a sense of what it'll be like to stand in the living room and look up. All those levels! You can see the mini 'window' in the cupola wall..
Besides the stairs, framing is pretty much done! The huge windows for the stairwell should be delivered any day now, and then we'll get them installed. Sam (the plasterer) is going to stop by and let us know when he can get started to finish this last piece of the house-puzzle! Sam (the husband) is going to start working on stairs! Stay tuned...
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