We have been slowly trying to catch up with our posts over the winter. Juggling work, building, life, and blog has been a challenge! We aim to start trying to post more regularly as we are in the home stretch!
This one dates back to when we first started framing in September. When we were finally ready to start the framing for the main floor (it seemed like it took forever to get to this point!) we knew we would have to adjust the prints. Since we went with the Iron eagle trailer we had 3.5 extra inches of height to keep in mind. This meant we basically had to resize everything. We also knew we wanted larger windows.
Jeff made up some drawings.
This one dates back to when we first started framing in September. When we were finally ready to start the framing for the main floor (it seemed like it took forever to get to this point!) we knew we would have to adjust the prints. Since we went with the Iron eagle trailer we had 3.5 extra inches of height to keep in mind. This meant we basically had to resize everything. We also knew we wanted larger windows.
Jeff made up some drawings.
Because we had no idea how to frame we asked an experienced friend to give us a quick lesson before starting. Our wonderful friend Andy showed up on the weekend with his nail gun and some practice boards. Our friend Keely who has some framing notches on her belt joined us for a refresher as well (also to be my cohort in female solidarity). We each practiced using the nail gun and Andy taught us how to position the boards to create corners. We ended up with what almost looked like a tiny-tiny house frame. I have to admit it crossed my mind to make Trotsky a matching tiny dog house. |
After the lesson we were each feeling more confident with the framing process but before we could start we had to level our trailer (we remembered this step just in time). To do this we used a laser level and a speed square.
Once the trailer was level we set out to frame our first wall. I donned my awesome new steel-toed kicks (compliments of the amazing Olivia Brooks) and was ready to raise some walls!
This turned out to be a real lesson in humility... the first few attempts were insanely slow going and inefficient. For every three nails we shot, we had to pull two out.We sucked! Despite our bleak start, we eventually were shooting more nails into the wood and throwing less in the garbage. By the end of the day we had the first third of our passenger side wall framed!
Once the trailer was level we set out to frame our first wall. I donned my awesome new steel-toed kicks (compliments of the amazing Olivia Brooks) and was ready to raise some walls!
This turned out to be a real lesson in humility... the first few attempts were insanely slow going and inefficient. For every three nails we shot, we had to pull two out.We sucked! Despite our bleak start, we eventually were shooting more nails into the wood and throwing less in the garbage. By the end of the day we had the first third of our passenger side wall framed!