Construction update fotos

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. | Saturday, May 22, 2010 - Construction of the stair progresses. Some days we never leave the back garden. We're out back working when Margaret leaves for the credit union. We are still there when she returns. 

We must have eaten a million El Farolito burritos by now. Often we leave for lunch. We get hungry. It's a long narrow place with booths, dark toward the back. But the mariachi music starts up on the jukebox. Blast of carnival, merry.

They have the saying about a person being able to survive all day on one date or fig. Same goes, easily, for an El Farolito burrito.

So here are some construction update pics. And a note on an earlier, controversial pic that showed the awesome diagonal patterning of the lag bolts on the ledger boards: the lag bolts are five inches long, and suck through the new 2x12s into existing double stacked 2x10 dimensional beams (actually two inches thick rather than the nominal's one-and-a-half inch thickness). Super rugged. Could barely crank the bolts home.

Yellow Truck, meanwhile, has developed a crotchety transmission. He doesn't like reverse, first gear or second gear. Amazingly, I can get him going in third when required. But won't last. I've topped off the gear oil and tried a couple other things, but haven't solved yet. Poor Yellow Truck. Sore and stiff now that the adrenalin has subsided. 

Rope like steel: Getting the last bit of the balcony's structural frame square to itself and to the brick path. Here we've cranked the ridge beam tight to the house with old lobster rope tricks, so we can hammer against it, fasten in the last couple joists. Maybe excessive, but the deck stayed square, it worked like a charm.






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Here comes the first stringer! A jumbled photo, but there it is, that beautiful thing, looking west, catching the afternoon sun. Each stringer is 14 steps, about 64 freehand cuts with the circular saw. Then those have to match up with the next 128 cuts for the next two stringers. No way around it. Anything worth doing takes a little time. 






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Here's the corner detail for the balcony. It's also the cantilever. Note the lack of a post at the corner there by the plum tree. So the two diagonal joists are transferring loads (i.e. the weight of people) from the far corner back to the ledger beam then down the posts. The diagonal joists are also going to serve as our nailers for the decking, so there had to be two, and they had to be as tight as possible, to nail within a few inches of the decking board ends. The smaller joists treeing off the diagonal joists preserve the overall joist spacing of two feet on center.



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Three stringers aloft. I love them best like this, when they're abstract. No treads, no risers. Just the right angles going up.




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Another shot of the trifecta.





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Margaret tests out one of the temporary treads.







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Adrienne, as decking goes in, white siding, green leaves, blue sky










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Here's the view from below, with the decking in, at the mitered corner, leading to stair. Took forever, doing miter vs. straight cuts. But it's the best moment, design-wise so far, and totally completes the gesture of the cantilever. Decking is redwood 2x6s with 1/4 spacing (thickness of two paint stirrers duct-taped together).



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 Stringers with treads.










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A jig, or maybe just a stop, to cut the uprights for the rail all to the same length. The tiny roof-shaped wood scrap ended up being perfect to get the wood level with the chop saw platform. 





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The uprights. With bottoms trimmed at a 45 degree angle. They'll carry the cabling. We glued and screwed 2x2s to these 2x4 uprights, to beef them up, but keep them more elegant than 4x4s. We already have four of these up. Fotos to come. Looking good. We're closing in on the cabling. Any day now. But first, a garden party. Ten minutes until 5. Must start juicing limes, get the fires going.




Hope all good. 
The weekend.
Sunny.
Buoy bell chime in the breeze.






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