WHEN THE WORD WORK IS REPLACED WITH THE WORD HOBBITIZING, LET'S BUILD A HOME.

Let the building begin. My brother Barry officially retired on March 31st after 42 years in the Carpenter's Union. He has owned 28 acres in Herkimer NY for the past decade, intending to build his dream home upon retirement.

Before retiring he was able to get a good jump on this project, getting out of the ground and completing the basement and the floor system, now it's time to throw some wood around.
Being that his location is just 76 miles from my home, lending him a hand is something that I've been looking forward to doing. It has been a while since we worked side by side. I explained to him how the word work should no longer be part of his vocabulary and should be replaced with the word hobbitizing. He couldn't agree with me more.

He's a master carpenter and after you see what he has going on, I think you will agree. Here is a picture of the day we started. The weather couldn't have been any better as his sweetheart of a wife comes out to greet me. Boy, this is going to be fun.

Before I go any further with showing you the actual build, I thought it would be a good idea to show you what the finished project will look like.

Alright, enough with the mushy stuff, let's get started, we're burning daylight. With the sill plates installed and outlining the rooms on the left side of the house, it won't be long before we stand the first wall. The sill plate is where the bottom of the wall studs will be attached.

After the sill plates are fastened to the subfloor, a double wall plate is temporarily fastened to the sill plate. The double-wall plates will be removed as the wall studs are fastened to them. The wall plates support and distribute the pressure from either the joists or rafters that will land on them as things progress.

With the wall studs fastened to the double top plates, it's time for a picture of the crew. With the crew comprised of just the two of us, the top plates have been constructed to allow us to split them so that we can stand smaller sections of the wall. With a larger crew, the entire 40-foot wall would have been able to be lifted into place as one piece.

Rinse and Repeat. With the walls stood, plumbed, and braced off it's time to stand the walls on the other side of the house.

By the middle of our third day, most of the walls have been stood.
Brother Barry was all smiles as his dream starts to take shape.

At the end of our third day, all of the walls had been stood. Kelly kept us well-fed and supplied us with a never-ending jug of coffee. I think her motive was to keep us from doing what you see here, sit down on the job. 😁

The other gentleman you see in this picture is our brother-in-law John. He lives around the corner. He was also a Union carpenter and Barry's mentor for several years. At the age of 80, he still gets around pretty well. As this project moves forward I'm sure he'll be strapping his tool belt on and lending a hand.

With all of the walls standing,
finishing the wall framing involved installing the headers for the doors and window openings.

The house is situated on top of a mountain and has a spectacular view,

so the more glass the better.

After four days we were ready to start the exterior sheathing. At this point, with hundreds of pieces of this puzzle being set in place, only one adjustment had to be made. With all that was going on, and following the architectural prints that spelled out every move, Barry noticed one mistake. The plans spelled out an opening of 8 feet for a set of top and bottom kitchen cabinets. He realized that the architect should have made the opening 8-foot 1-inch. The extra inch would allow room for the sheetrock to be installed on the walls prior to installing the cabinets. With an 8-foot opening, the sheetrock would have had to be cut around the cabinets and that just isn't GI. I surely would have missed that one.

We installed Zip Sheathing, a relatively new product. Zip Sheathing has a built-in water-resistive barrier. ZIP System sheathing and tape are easier to install than traditional plywood sheathing and house wrap or felt, a big time saver.

With the pump jacks and aluminum pick set up, installing the sheathing went pretty well. The Zip Sheathing is somewhat heavier than traditional plywood, but the time-saving factor is huge.

As we moved around the house, the pump jacks had to be reset. Resetting them takes about 15 minutes. Being able to have everything right in your wheelhouse while placing the board into position and nailing it down is well worth the 15 minutes it takes to reposition the scaffolding.

By the end of the 6th day of hobbitizing, this is what we had accomplished.

The next part of this build will involve installing the roof trusses
with the help of a crane and a few extra hands.