Shelter! (a photo-essay)

Thanks to favorable weather, and some well-timed help from our friends Chrissy and Adil, we were able to get the structure under roof before Rachel and I left the Islands. Sorry we don't have time right now to annotate every picture, so they will have to speak for themselves. I'll just say that we are very happy with the way it came out; and with the beautiful cooperative creation process that made it possible.

Barn Raising

We did it! The most exciting day of the project went off without a hitch. Well, almost (we only dropped one bent--and really, three out of four ain't bad for a bunch of amateurs!). Paul, Maxine, Rachel and I, along with a crew of friends and neighbors, got it done. it was really an amazing day, for so many reasons. as far as the structure itself goes, it was eye-opening for me to finally see all these separate pieces we have been working on put together in their intended shape. chiseling this post here, cutting that beam there, drilling holes every which way--it was hard for me to envision what it was all really for. i mean, of course i knew we were "building a house," but i wasn't able to fully step back and envision how we were building it. then, as one bent after another went up, it all became clear...

First, let's look at some of the details. This close-up shows the end grain of a piece after treatment with boric acid. Termites are a problem here in Hawaii, so we are taking every precaution. see all the sparkles? this is on every cut end of the whole frame. plus, the salvaged wood has spray paint, pinkish-red metal primer, silver paint, and all sorts of other stuff all over it. it is like a sparkly colorful dream house--the trash fairy could live here!

but seriously, the sparkles are a happy by-product of a serious issue. termites are all over the place, munching down on buildings left and right. i didn't know much about them before i came here, but termites are pretty interesting little things. they eat wood, but most species don't actually produce the enzymes needed to digest it. instead, they rely on a symbiotic relationship with protozoa in their guts that break the cellulose down into more absorbable particles. the protozoa, in turn, have a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria embedded in their surface that manufacture these necessary enzymes. so, the bacteria make the enzymes the protozoa use to digest the wood for the termites. that's a pretty amazing picture of evolution in action, and on such a small scale.

The picture above shows the connection between the footings and the post. Notice the concrete took on the surface pattern of the formwork, which was a plastic flower pot. The aluminum termite shield will be trimmed back and the straps bolted into the post. when we treated all the exposed wood, i wondered why we weren't treating these huge exposed posts, and instead focusing only on the end cuts. apparently, termites are relatively weak, so they really only get into end cuts because it is easier to bore with the grain rather than across it. termites are not particularly tenacious, so the shields and boric acid treatment should be enough to hold them at bay, especially since there are probably no established colonies because there has never been a house on this site.

Below you can see where the floor girder joins the post. It is a whole timber tenon and thru-mortise, wedged in place from the top, which has proven to be very strong. It locks itself in place, so no need for any bolts or pegs. i really love this look. the wedges were a decision paul and luke made along the way, and i think it adds a simple beauty to the structure. they were a bit of extra work--each post is different, and because it is unfinished lumber, each beam is slightly different as well, so each wedge was unique--but it was worth it. another bonus is that since the posts are green and will probably shrink slightly over time, paul can go around with his monster mallet (see below) every few months and knock them in a little further.

We used a plumb-bob to align the posts...

And a Flintstones mallet to pound in stakes. paul made this mallet a few days before the raising. the handle is guava and the head is rambutan. both of these are fairly dense woods, so that mallet is heavy! we used it to pound stakes, pound wedges, fit the beams through the mortises, level the posts, and it sure did the trick. everyone wanted a turn swinging that thing. maxine and i weren't too good at it, but we sure felt tough!

Everything came together fairly smoothly, with some minor adjustments here and there. Apart from one small (and correctable) mathematical error, all the beams came up level and the posts read plumb. hey now, it can't always be perfect (a lesson i have had to learn myself). after all, we're building with trash here. our motto for the project, which comes from an old boss of luke's, sums up all the little mistakes we've made over the past month or so: "hey, we ain't buildin' a piana!"

Here you can see the final bent assembled on the ground, ready for lifting. The bents were very heavy, but many hands make light work. I wouldn't say it was easy, but we got them up without too much drama. for each bent, we carried the two posts over and set them up on their base and luke's sawhorses. then we brought the truss over and fit it into the notches at the top of the posts. after bolting the pieces together (that's what luke is doing in the above photo), the bent was ready to go up. we tied one end of a rope to a stake, tied the middle to the top of the truss, and then heaved-ho! about halfway up, someone ran to the other side and helped pull with the rope. when the bent was up, everyone would steady it until the rope was tied off to another stake. then came the minor adjustments to get everything all lined up and level.

Here, Paul is placing the tie-beam, which runs the length of the structure, tying the bents together into a frame.

paul and maxine had several friends and neighbors that were really eager to help out. people came and went, depending on their schedules, but there were always enough people to get the job done. here are a few of the day's helpers. This is Bam-Bam. I mean, Chase. He looks tough, but he's really pretty cool. everyone feels like a badass with the monster mallet in their hands.

this is lucas being a goofball. he had to work in the early evening, but he was there for most of the day and really got into it. we were glad to have him--and his height!

This is Uncle Al. His years of carpentry experience helped us through the process. Not to mention his witty remarks and hilarious stories to help lighten the mood when it got too serious.

and this is just a nice picture of luke. he is wearing his late grandfather's old work shirt. it's his favorite. he says you can't find shirts like this anymore--simple, comfortable, well-made, strong. it seems fitting that luke would be wearing this shirt, a vestige of a generation past, on the day we raised a building whose foundations rest in the practices of past generations--selectively harvesting trees for timber, salvaging and reusing materials, using hand tools for construction, and involving family and friends in the building process. pop pop would be proud of his grandsons, working together to build a structure much like his old shirt: simple, comfortable, well-made, strong.

The day's work...

And its future residents...

There's nothing like a cold beer and a barbecue to wrap up a long day of hard work. paul and maxine lured their friends up to the orchard with promises of beer and food. and while those things were very welcome come the end of the day, i think they were just icing on the cake. for a moment, we forgot everything else, and were united in a common purpose. the who, what, and why of the building fell away, and all that mattered was that we were building something, together. and that, as the grill indicator below says, is nothing short of ideal...

And finally, here's the video of it all, condensed into 40 seconds for your viewing convenience:

Rambutan and Recycled Timbers

Before we get back to work, we thought you might like to see some of the orchard Paul works so hard to maintain. The building site is located in the lower part of the orchard, which receives the full cooling effect of the tradewinds. It is a beautiful spot, with views of both the ocean and the mountain (Mauna Kea). the photo below is near the house site, just next to the tarped area we are working under. there is a large avocado tree sitting on the edge of the gulch. it's the perfect place to hang a hammock and enjoy the view during a break from work (which luke and i have done), or on a nice warm summer evening (which i am sure paul and maxine will do plenty of).

the photos below are of the areas that paul has cleared and has been tending. it is amazing how vigorously everything grows here; the sections of the orchard that paul hasn't cleared yet are completely overgrown with small trees, shrubs, and grasses well over our heads. you can imagine the work paul has put into this place to get it looking as beautiful as it does now.

After a few years of working with a hand saw and a weed-whacker, Paul has invested in a mower and a couple of chainsaws, and is really whipping the orchard into shape. It is quite a task... 14 acres in rainy Hawaii has a lot of potential biomass. Not to mention, the designer of the orchard made some questionable decisions, like planting rows of a eucalypt called Wili-Wili, which succumbed to a blight a few years ago and left Paul with tons of rotting wood scattered all over the property (you can see a nice neat pile of it in the picture above).

The orchard's main crop is a fruit called rambutan, which you can see here. they aren't truly in season right now, but there are some here and there. as you can see above, paul was nice enough to climb up and get us a few. rambutans are in the family sapindaceae, which includes other tropical fruit trees like lychee and longan (both of which paul has on the orchard as well), and, interestingly enough, also includes such temperate trees as maple and horse chestnut. rambutan, lychee, and longan are all fruits with a leathery outer skin which is peeled off to reveal a pale, almost translucent fruit that looks something like a peeled grape. though their specific flavors vary, they all tend to have a sugary, sweet/sour taste with a slightly gummy mouth feel. rambutan, however, are the only ones of the bunch with litte alien hairs! Below are some on the tree in early stages of development.

OK, now onto the construction work...woo hoo!

We finished all the eucalyptus posts we were working on in our last blog entry.

And they are waiting snug and tight out of the rain for next week, when we raise the frame.

Then we moved on to the trusses. Again, the material was free, thanks to a neighboring farmer Paul works for two days a week harvesting heart of palm. He gave us a huge stack of these old scaffolding boards from when he worked doing bridge repairs. After sorting out the rotten stuff, we had enough material for all the trusses and beams. These are no piddly things, either. Rough cut, true dimension 2 inch by 10 inch, old-growth Douglas Fir... this is solid lumber.

We set up our tarp workstation a little more ergonomically with sawhorses this time. It was mainly sawing for these (no chiseling), so we ripped right through. thank heavens (and luke) for those sawhorses. it was one thing propping the posts up on low pieces of wood and chiseling near the ground, but trying to saw and drill that way was a whole other story. after a day of stacking end cuts, checking their levels, and trying to saw without knocking the whole thing over, luke was fed up enough to make three (amazing) sawhorses out of the scraps. ahh, those, along with the clamps paul bought, made life a lot easier.

i can't say i've had that much opportunity to saw in my life, so i was excited (and a little nervous--it's really sharp!) to learn. it took me about 20 minutes to get through my first board--i kept switching arms and getting tired, and at the end of it all it wasn't even close to straight/square. but after some practice, i am a little faster and a little straighter (and a little squarer? hmm...).

Cutting the chamfer on the end of a collar tie...

We decided on a plywood gusset for the peak miter joint, and I added a little dowel on the bottom corner to hang stuff from.

After three days of measuring, cutting, drilling and bolting, we had a stack of trusses ready to go. Note the end truss, above, with the king post. you can see below that there are four trusses with two different heights of collar ties. the top two will go at the lower end of the house for paul and maxine's loft bedroom, while the bottom two will go at the upper end of the house above the kitchen.

And yesterday we worked a long day to finish all the beams. This is one of the floor girders, which joins the post at a thru-mortise that will be wedged from the top. Now all that remains is the diagonal braces, and we'll be ready to put it up! yesterday was a long, cold day (i am going to freeze to death when i get back to virginia!). it rained and was really windy most of the day, but we got a lot done. doing the beams and girders was all about measuring and sawing, measuring and sawing, interrupted only by moving the beam around a lot. but it was interesting, and we got to chisel and rasp the ends so they look all rustic and pretty. these are old pieces of wood with paint, primer, rust, etc. all over them. the contrast between that and the sawed/chiseled edges that reveal the wood underneath is really quite cool.

Beer:30 (you're a good man, paul flessner...)

next time, we'll be telling you all about how smoothly the frame raising went (cross your fingers!). paul is rounding up the posse and we'll be putting this sucker up at the end of next week. i am really excited to see this whole thing put together. until then, we leave you with a cute photo of our tail-wagging, face-licking, stick-fetching, wild boar-chasing mascot: kala the wonderdog!

(p.s. pierre and chewbacca, we love you and miss you and send you big kisses and belly rubs and we promise, you are still our favorites!)