Post, Beams, and Vigas

Posts, Corbels, and one 22 foot 10x12 beam are in place ready for vigas.


John guides a viga into place while giving signals to the crane operator. Griffin positions the other end.


Griffin steadies a viga while it swings into position


Another viga swings into position over what will be the kitchen.


All vigas are in place and ready for leveling in the guest bedroom portion of the house. You can start to get a feel for the space with them in place.


This is a view through the dining and living areas toward the master bedroom, taken from the kitchen area. You can see the posts with corbels holding up the big beams. On Wednesday morning a light cover of snow reminded us that winter is fast approaching.


The Roof Structure Starts to Take Shape

On Tuesday, October 28th, we began working on posts for the interior of the house. I built a jig for cutting the ends of the post square to their axis and then fabricated metal plates for anchoring the post to the floor. They consist of a plate that is lag bolted to the bottom of the post having four sections of angle iron welded to it and another flat plate that is bolted to the floor or, in a couple locations, welded to a piece of rebar protruding from the concrete. John and Griffin cut the posts to length and then attached corbels to their tops. The posts were then positioned and the metal base plates were welded solid. The 10" x 12" beams were prepped and Mark Jenkins lifted them into place with the big excavator. His help made a back-breaking task almost effortless. We ran lag bolts through the beams and down into the corbels to anchor everything together. We were then ready to lift vigas into place.


Jenny and I worked on staining the 2x6 tongue-and-groove fir for the ceiling. We used a product called "Lifetime" http://www.valhalco.com/when.htm which is not really a stain but a chemical/mineral compound that is added to water and causes rough cut wood to turn barn wood gray. We did not get this result with the T&G due to the finished surface. Our wood darkened a slight silver color from its original blond and turned a slight salmon red color. We are happy with the look and also like the idea that "Lifetime" is non-toxic.


Monday November 3rd, we finished up the beam installation and began measuring the ends of the vigas and planning their positions in the rooms. I hired a crane to help us place the vigas on Tuesday. John, Griffin and I placed 33 vigas in 3 hours.

November 4th, election day: a great day for America and the world!


Wednesday morning, November 5th, we awoke to snow. I called John to tell him it was snowing at our house and maybe we should wait out the weather. He replied "Yeah...it's snowing up here on the bond beam as well!" So much for taking a day off for bad weather. I quite my whining and headed to the site. The day was spent leveling the vigas and attaching the metal anchor straps in the guest bedroom section of the house.

The Bond Beam is Completed

The house looking out at the hills to the south. The area in the lower half of the image is open space. There are several earthen dams along the drainage that runs through the center of this space that provide water for wildlife. Deer and Elk migrate south through the openspace from the high mountains to the lowlands along the New Mexico border in the late fall and back again in the spring.




The concrete pumper truck driver getting into the Halloween spirit.





This shot was taken seconds before the front face of this vertical form blew out.

Sarah and John working the concrete. The vertical section to the left started to blow out while I was leveling the concrete. You can see bracing holding the lower portion of this form in place.

The end of block wall celebration and a farewell to Sarah and Thomas. From the left: John, Sarah, Thomas, Griffin, and Lyle.

Raider posing next to the septic tank. The septic system is in and inspected. The Jenkins get the lower portion of the property contoured and ready for native grass and wildflower seed which we will plant in late November.


The framing crew arrived on October 20th and had the garage framed in a couple days. It's no wonder frame structures are so popular.

By the 24th the garage was being sheathed with OSB.

Two truck loads of post, vigas, and beams arrived on October 27th. This marks the beginning of the roof structure phase of construction.

The Final Phase of the Bond Beam
Once the guest bedroom area and the great room block walls reached their full height, forms were assembled and the final section of the bond beam was poured. This part of the bond beam included some vertical sections that tied the lower walls to the taller walls. Some of these vertical sections were over 4 feet high. In addition, there were three lintels that were formed using rough sawn 2x lumber to match the wood lintels used throughout the rest of the house. The inside of these wood facias were lined with Bituthane and 2" foam. Five lengths of #5 rebar were hung in the form for strength. The pour started out rather badly as two of the vertical sections blew out with the force of the concrete being pumped into them. We scrambled and put the forms back together using 2x4 bracing and bar clamps. The rest of the pour went well. The concrete was leveled, straps were positioned to hold the vigas, and anchor bolts were inserted along the inner and outer perimeter of the bond beam for roof framing. The team gathered at the end of the day for a celebration marking the end of the block work and a farewell to Thomas and Sarah. Lyle will stay on until the fireplace butresses are completed. John and Griffin will stay on to help with the roof structure and interior details

The Septic System

Danette Jenkins and her son, Mark, arrived on October 24 to begin work on the septic system. The tank was dropped into place and pipe was routed down to the distribution box. The distribution box was connected to six 100' rows of infiltrators configured as two rows in each of three 6' wide trenches. The system was inspected and approved on the 26th. The system was buried and the ground contoured and ready to start landscape restoration. We will wait until the cold winter weather arrives to scatter seed. We will use a mix of native grass, wildflowers, and native shrubs and trees. We purchased most of the seed but some we have been collecting around the area.

Framing the Garage

Since the block walls took a month longer than planned, I decided to hire a framing crew to put up the garage and master bath tub room. That frees John, Griffin, and me to focus on getting the roof structure for the main portion of the house competed before winter. Frame structures go up amazingly fast and are a relatively cheap construction process. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of lumber which comes from clearcut forest in the pacific northwest and needs to be hauled a long distance to this area. In addition, the frame structure is not a good thermal barrier. Heat within a wood structure finds a path to the outside through the framing.We accepted this method of construction for the garage because we will only be tempering the space to keep things from freezing and because it is a relative small space.

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