If you’re a construction worker, this “Farm Apartment” blog series might make you go “huh?” but hopefully that’s okay because for your sake I am skipping over some of the more boring parts. It is entirely coincidental that those boring parts just happened to be very stressful to the point where I forgot to take pictures.
Which is a bummer, because a crane was involved.
While the open sky look can be quite lovely, it is not conducive for shelter during rainstorms. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can catch up by reading this post first. Yes, we’re building a second story onto a formerly flat-roofed barn.
Anyway, let’s talk about the crane, since that was the best/most stressful part. Dad ordered these fancy joists (they looked like these) that were made up of two 2x4s and some plywood. Apparently they’re very strong, and very heavy–thus the crane. The truck driver who delivered them also doubled as a crane driver which was conveniently a part of the truck itself. He hoisted up those joists and plopped them right onto the roof as if they were pick-up sticks–except with way more serious consequences if something went wrong.
Once we had the joists, it was simply (HA) a matter of spacing them across the beam and walls every sixteen inches and nailing them in. Nevermind that each joist weighed a ton apiece (almost) and were about 40 feet long.
Then came some less stressful progress–the “deck”! Apparently this platform is not called a “floor;” no, that would be entirely too logical.
Using the farm’s forklift, Dad lifted up a stack of 4×8′ sheets of underlayment and we got to building.
(Picture from my sister’s Instagram feed.)
My job was affixing everything with the nail gun, since wrangling the large sheets of underlayment into place was not my forte. Which was fine with me–nail-gunning makes one feel quite powerful.
We got halfway done the first day and finished up on the second evening we worked on it.
In the picture below you can see that half of the deck has been laid (in the foreground) and half has yet to be laid.
My grandpa got a jump on the framing of the second story by assembling the walls (you can see them lying down) before we’d even finished the deck.
With the underlayment down, it is nearly time to begin framing!
And that will wait for another post. Bwahaha.
I’m just happy we don’t have to walk from joist to joist (in mortal peril) anymore. I have great balance, but it’s somewhat unnerving to step over gaping holes into which you could quite possibly plummet with any misstep.
Also–can I just point out how great the view is from our construction site? Nothing like looking out over the fields at sunset!
Anyone else want to share their nail-gunning experience? Or desire to learn? I am basically an expert now. 🙂
Planting Sequoias 
