Summer sleeping quarters

[VonYinzer]

So cool Troy. Mine work is winding down, so in a week or so I may be able to head south and lend a hand.

[bradj]

Ill help if i can and youll have me. i just found out im a pip what ever that is i dont think it contagious be cant be to carefull

[troybilt]

Appreciate the offers fellas. I hope to have the building setting on a  trailer by 7am tomorrow.We are close. My father and I have worked from  daylight to dark the past three days and we've really knocked a bunch of stuff out. Trailer is coning at 6:30a and as far as I can tell we are  ready to get the building set on it. The set back right now is we have  to drive over my emergency spill way and it is far too low for the  trailer to cross it. I spent about 3 hours moving dirt today and hardly  made a dent. Hopefully I can find some soil closer to the spill way so  things will go a little faster tomorrow. Another thing needing done is  about 5 tree stumps need cut at ground height so the trailer can cross  over them. We are expecting rain to start tomorrow around 1 so we'll be  hustling.
At the very least the building should be on the trailer tomorrow then it can be moved once we have a few consecutive dry days.


anyhow, on to the pics:
 
 
Site is all ready. All the post are now 30" deep set with 80#s concrete. The post are notched so the headers sit in the notch (headers hanging on nails on the side is a pet peeve of mine ). The post in front are for the deck and are yet to be trimmed.

 

 
 
hand dug under the building to make it level so the trailer and building will set level.

 
All the metal on the outside hung down below the facia boards. besides being pretty beat up it was not very even along the bottom. Had to trim aprox 6" around the entire building. This is not pretty.

 
 
metal blade in circular saw did a quick number. (normally I'd hand trim because heat causes the metal to lose it's coating and will cause premature rusting.) Since a little rust will probably add to the look I used the saw.

 
Trimmed

 
The metal on front of the building trimmed. Looks better already

 
 
The front 2x10x20 skid/header in place. There is also one on the inside sandwiching the posts.

 
 
The trailer and truck together are over 50' and since everything is on a pretty good slope, we had to create a level 'road'. Finished this up about midnight lastnight

 
 
My dad jokes that the prevous builders spent little time and money building. Not only is the front of the building 8" wider than the back they also used what ever lumber they had laying around. Case and point: the outside ledger boards are all 6" except for a few places where they used 8" boards. Eight inches is not going to work so they all got trimmed to match the 6" boards

 
 
We think some of the boards used for this building were from the old barn built in 1830. I know it's not possible but they seem to make a lot more dust when cut.
(The jagged metal on this side is being replaced from the metal removed from the front when we install the new windows.  Right now it has a small homemade entrance door that's falling apart. That will get closed up and a proper door put in its place)

 
 
The floors and ceilings had sags of 2 and 3" sometimes over as little as 6' spans (this is what happens when you hang crap off nails) so we jacked them as level as we could as we installed the new headers

 
 
My father prying the new headers in place

 
 
Time to start cutting posts

 
 
jacks were put in place to remove some of the weight off th post so they could be cut. Luckly a couple post could be cut from outside

 
Today we cut and removed 4 posts down the center. Also cut another 4 across the back side. We simply set the building back on the post stubs (hopefully they won't be like that very long). Now there's room under the building for the trailer

A Telephone pole was used as the header down the middle (A small round pole on it's side is not strong so its now gone). It gets replaced by 2- 2x10x20' screwed together.

 
Building's center is open and ready for the trailer. All the post have been cut except the 4 on the front. We will crib and block it in order to set it down on the trailer. This is how it sits this evening

The hold up right now is I hit a nail with the chain saw. My father did a quick sharpen but the day was fading. Plan is to start cutting stumps at 5a then move on to finishing the land bridge across the spill way. Hopefully we can get it all knocked out before the trailer arrives at 6:30. Calling for rain at 1 so we've got our fingers crossed

[JustinLonghorn]

You are definitely cut from the same cloth as your pops, Troy.

I love this project. It is beautiful, my man.

[Maritime]

Nice work Troy and Pap!  Wish We could help but you guys work like 5 men each!

[troybilt]

You are definitely cut from the same cloth as your pops, Troy.

I love this project. It is beautiful, my man.

 
 
 
 

You are definitely cut from the same cloth as your pops, Troy.
 
 I love this project. It is beautiful, my man.
 

 thanks brothers. I really appreciate the kind words. My ol man is really special to me. This project is probably just as much about our journey together as it is about the finish line. I was recently motivated by a beautiful short film posted on Le Container. If you get a few minutes it's definitely worth a watch:

   
Well, Its been one heck of a day. Started at 4:30a and i finally quit at 7p. The rain held off and the building is sitting on the trailer at the pond. The owner of the trailer is an old friend and without him we couldn't have pulled this off. WE pushed hard and worked pretty much non-stop. I hope at 70 i can do half the work of my Pap. Delbert is even older and works just as hard. He is a retired farmer and happens to be the person we purchased much of our hay equipment from. A few years back he had an accident and cut one of his arms off in a hay bailer. It was re-attached but has very limited use. He tried to return to farming but decided to retire and that's when we got into the hay business.
Dad and I started before the sun came up with a long list of things to do. Since we are working in fenced pastures we had to lock the animals in the barn and take down about 30' of fence. We cut the stumps to ground height and dad attached some braces to the headers. Since the building has to skid across the tops we didn't want to knock anything loose.

Sun up:

 
It took us about 5 hours to get to this point. The trailer just didn't want to go in. The slope gave us all the wrong angles. Took many many tries and a bunch of hand digging.
Delbert looking on:


 
lots of hand digging then lots of jacking and blocking

 
 
The building is still sitting on the post at this point:

 
 
Happy moment. The three of us take a minute to pose for a pic right after finally getting the building down on the trailer. All the post have been cut away and removed.

 
The slope leading into the building can be seen here. After we got the trailer under it  had to be unhooked from the truck in order to jack and block it to meet the building. To get hooked back up the area where the truck's tires would hit had to be dug. There is a fairly steep bank on the lower side which also limited what could be done.


 

It's moving... The second photo down the trailer started pulling hard down the hill and the truck started sliding in the lose soil. Things started to get a little tricky



 
Earlier in the day we had to climb these trees and cut limbs. I also lifted my dad in the tractor's bucket to trim limbs. It was super tight working our way around the trees. We ended up almost against the tree at the end (about 1/2" away). Delbert and dad somehow kept the building from hitting it but things got real slow at that point. Not seen in these photos is the tractor chained to the truck. The building trailer started pulling hard on the truck and in the lose soil the truck couldn't hold it back. Took some quick rigging

 
The truck is sitting in what was the emergency spill way. I spent about 3 hours today scrounging to find enough dirt to create a land bridge on to the dam. Ended up not being wide enough and one side ended up down off the side.  Not only this place but there were also lots of other low places along the way so we had to use what ever we could to put under tires (notice the wood just behind the trucks front tire ).


She is not on the headers yet but that can wait a day or three. We are in need of some much needed rest. I finished the day filling in holes where the posts for the building were so animals wouldn't break their legs. We also replace the two fences we took down earlier. next on the list is to talk to Rich about a possible road trip over the weekend
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Big Rich]

No problem on my end - as long as Meg isn't in labor. We don't have anything planned for the weekend so just let me know when is good for you.

[troybilt]

That is awesome (Meg). To be honest I've been afraid to ask. She must be close? Things going well? I'm super super happy for the two of you.
I leaning toward Sunday. Does that work? I'll be coming alone, wonder who we can get to help load? also, any luck on a door or any other windows?

[Tim]

Thanks for sharing this with everyone Troy - inspirational on many levels.

[Big Rich]

She is doing ok - had some false labor Wednesday night. But the doc said it was nothing to worry about. She is about 37 and a half weeks along now, and is.......um....... not enjoying it.

Sunday shouldn't be a problem at all - I'll try and get hold of the local guys to lend a hand. And no word on the other materials yet - sorry. I will let you know if anything changes .

[Maritime]

Nice work Troy, Pap, and Delbert!  Made it look easy in the pics but from the looks it was lots of hard work.  Rich, tell Meg to hold in there, it will all be worth it in the end and make sure you run out everytime she gets a weird craving oh and if she gets up and decides to do some kind of major chore, be ready.  The night before Jill gave birth she mowed the lawn, 1 acre with a push mower 9 months pregant!  I couldn't stop her, she would have tore me apart.  Not 5 hours later we were off to the hospital.

Cheers

[valvesprung]

This is am awesome project, can't wait to see it all done!

[troybilt]

Thanks for sharing this with everyone Troy - inspirational on many levels.

Very welcome Tim. I'm glad to have a place to share it!

[troybilt]

She is doing ok - had some false labor Wednesday night. But the doc said it was nothing to worry about. She is about 37 and a half weeks along now, and is.......um....... not enjoying it.

Sunday shouldn't be a problem at all - I'll try and get hold of the local guys to lend a hand. And no word on the other materials yet - sorry. I will let you know if anything changes .

I'm happy Meg held off so we could see the two of you I have to say she looked fantastic and was really glowing. I'm so happy for the two of you.
Can't thank you enough for the window!

[troybilt]

Nice work Troy, Pap, and Delbert!  Made it look easy in the pics but from the looks it was lots of hard work.  Rich, tell Meg to hold in there, it will all be worth it in the end and make sure you run out everytime she gets a weird craving oh and if she gets up and decides to do some kind of major chore, be ready.  The night before Jill gave birth she mowed the lawn, 1 acre with a push mower 9 months pregant!  I couldn't stop her, she would have tore me apart.  Not 5 hours later we were off to the hospital.

Cheers

Thanks Mike. You know, looking at the pictures I couldn't believe how much they left out and how easy they made everything look.  I really enjoy the engineering part but have to admit that its taking much longer than I'd hoped. I do have to say though, everything has gone very smooth.
Excellent advice to Rich BTW!