LET THE FRAMING BEGIN

Good progress with framing the first floor.  All seems well.  Pictures tell the story.

Dan's portable solar generator is powering the job site.

Laying out the front (south) wall over the cistern/porch.

First framed wall goes up- east side.

First floor framed.  Hurricane ties in place to secure second floor.

South wall framed.

Header bolted in place on back wall to catch 2nd floor joists.

Kitchen area.

Hurricane ties under sill plate, connecting every stud.

READY TO COME OUT OF THE DIRT

Every piece of lumber gets touched three times between the beach and the site.  Once off-loading it from the rack, a second time loading it into Dan's dump truck, and a third time off-loading it at the site.  Never mind the challenges of scheduling a barge and landing it on Lovango in the first place- even something as basic as getting materials 150' from the beach to the site is made incredibly tiresome and labor-intense by the remote island setting.  

Which is why it's so exhilarating to have the foundation stripped and back-filled and all the lumber up at the site.  Heidi just got final prints to Dan and the structure should start coming off the page in a hurry.  The fun part.

Dan's dump truck with a load from the beach.

Sill plates stacked and ready to be placed.

The originally cut drive to the right and newly cut drive down to cottage on left.  Great access.  For the record- while the cottage is 150' from beach, the drive is about probably .2 miles down the beach and then  switchback and another .2 miles up the hill.

Back doorway out of upstairs bedroom to (future) outdoor shower.

West wall and site of master bedroom outdoor shower.

Trying to create some terracing between drive and east lawn area.

East lawn area of kitchen/living room.

Trac hoe packed up and leaving.  For last time?

LUMBER ARRIVING

The forms have been stripped over the past couple of weeks and on Saturday all the lumber to frame and sheath the cottage arrived (first from FL, more recently from STT) on two 20' racks.  At the same time the barge (re)delivered the track hoe to do the final grading for the driveway and around the foundation.  As of today, June 15, all the lumber has been off-loaded from the racks and Dan's dump truck (which also came over on the barge) is ready to start hauling it all from the beach up to the site.  Framing is about to begin.

The recession ended about 5 minutes before we started to build this place and shipping and barge companies were the first to leverage the fact.  Both the barge rental and the rack shipping were a form of legalized (as far as we can tell) sodomy.  But still much more convenient than our swimming it over ourselves.

The foundation stripped and coated... ready for backfilling.

Another view of the stripped foundation.

Barge arrived with 2 20' racks of lumber, the track hoe, and Dan's dump truck.  Landing on west side of dock to avoid coral (and expensive fines for damaging coral).

Off loading the track hoe on the beach.

The track hoe sneaking bewteen the dock and Love Shack... Barely.

First rack, off loaded on the beach.

Second rack... still waiting.

Track hoe cutting drive and terracing.