The sauna building is up!

It is amazing what six people can accomplish when they put their minds to something. With only the lifting power of three guys and a little extra help from three others, 10 beams, 3 posts, and 6 rafters where hefted into the air and up 16 feet to be put into place.

Adding the next layers of timbers, (king posts, side beams, ridge beam and the rafters) to the "dead nuts" foundation built last weekend by Todd and my dad, the building is almost completely framed in. There was some doubt by the elders if it was even possible to life 500 lb timbers with only three guys. But determination, teamwork and engineering ingenuity got that baby built over the course of the weekend.

When I wasn't helping to lift timbers, I hauled rocks to make some more retaining walls, landscaped a "fern gully" to help with erosion control, cooked food for the hungry workers, played with the pups, and painted all the beams with preservative.

Beatons Labor Day 2008 - The Build

To see the whole weekend of timber raising madness, double click on the photo above to go to the photo album.

Going to put up more timbers this weekend

Heading back to Beatons tonight to continue the timber raising that we began last weekend. One of the reasons we choose to go with a timber framed structure, is it's enduring nature, durabilty and strength. While we'll get plenty of use out of the sauna and future cabin, we are really building it for the next generations.
Pictured above is a 400 year old timber framed building in Bremen, Germany. Nestled in with other centuries-old buildings, these buildings really stand the test of time. I so fell in love with the Altstadt (Old City) when Todd and I visited.

Barn raising good time

Amazing.

That pretty much sums up last weekend's work at Beatons. My Dad and Todd worked their butts off raising the timber foundation of the sauna haus. With six posts glued into the concrete foundation, plummed and squared, they then proceeded to lift the several hundred pound cross beam timbers to their 8.3 foot high ledges.

From this foundation, the rafter and ridge beams will be placed next weekend to start to frame in the roof. The pictures don't really show how much physical labor was involved, but wow, My Dad was just an amazing master of the timbers. And Todd was no slouch either.
I was the chief painter this weekend. That involved, cleaning, baking and painting the hundreds of metal connectors that will be used. We went with a matte black finish on the metal work. It contrasts very nicely with the reddish colored Douglas Fir timbers. I also got to seal/paint all of the timbers to protect them from the elements.

Click on the gallery below to see larger pictures of our timber raising weekend.