Framing a View

Not to brag, but this is the view of the Columbia River from our garage window. Yes, the garage! It may seem silly to put a picture window in a garage, but when you have views like this you do weird things. Like building a house on an impossible slope.

After the I-beams were placed the crew had to wrap them in wood, a time consuming job. Once complete it didn't take long for Brian, Rob and Hank to lay the decking for the first floor and start on the wall framing. First to go up, the East wall with a lovely window facing the neighbors house.

Interior walls started popping up, the image above is the beginnings of our stairwell to the second floor which will have a three foot by eight foot feature window at the landing.

From the Southeast corner, you can see the garage door opening, the front door and the window at Scott's office. 

A view from the Southwest.

Scott's twin brother Angel and nephew Alex stopped by for a visit. Angel is inspecting his future bedroom and view. Brian and crew aren't able to frame the first floor back of the house until the second floor I-beams are placed.

Getting kinda artsy here. This is a 4 by 12 inch LVL beam that will hold up the front overhang of the second floor and support the kitchen. All I know about LVL beams is they are layered wood and glue, they are super strong and straight, dimensionally stable and a bit more expensive than kiln dried beams. We will also use them for the 22 foot tall bump out at the stairwell.

Here you can see six of the LVL beams as the crew frames out the overhang. You can see on the right where one of the second floor I-beams will go, right behind the LVL beam at the edge of the east wall.

View from the South. In between the garage and front door there is planned wood storage for our wood-burning fireplace and courtyard fire pit.

The deck off of Scott's den. In the lower left corner you can see the I-beam wrapped in wood and also a beam fitted into the flange at the end of the beam. Once the second floor I-beams are placed the decking will be put down so they can use the deck to wrap the new beams and sheath the first and second floor walls.