LittleHouse – Building the Loft

 

LittleHouse – Building the Loft

by admin on May.12, 2007, under Framing

Loft
08 May 2007.
We arrived for another week of work on May 7th.

After placing the loft floor joists on their ledger boards and bolting them to the walls, we discovered that we had built the interior wall to short. (That happens when you are tired…).

So we built a big header beam out of 3 2×6’s sandwiched with 2 layers of half-inch plywood. Placing this on top of the wall (which was luckily built to be load-bearing anyway) brought the height up to where it should be.

Then, the floor joists on the end are doubled up anyway, to provide a beefier support for the railings of the loft.

 
Loft Beam

Loft Floor Joists
08 May 2007.
The loft floor joists rest on the ledger boards that we built into the walls. We then bolted them to the wall joists to tie the north and south walls together, in place of collar ties on the roof above the lofts.

We used shims liberally to snug up the little spaces that didn’t quite fit, or to get things as level as possible, even given the crooked lumber we often have to work with.

 
Loft Joists

Loft Floor
09 May, 2007.
After building the loft floor joists, we installed the 3/4″ tongue and groove subfloor for the main loft.

Here, Randy is nailing down the subfloor.

 
Loft Subfloor

Small Loft
11 May, 2007.
Here, Tara shows off the small loft on the west end. This one is for storage only, but even so, it is very strong, with no flexing when we walk around on it.

It is about 13′ wide by 4′ deep.

 
Small Loft

Big Loft
11 May 2007.
And here is the big loft on the East end. It is for sleeping. It’s about 13′ wide by 8′ deep.

Notice how we built the walls higher than the loft, to provide extra headroom in the loft.

 
Big Loft

View from Loft
11 May 2007.
Here is a view to the northeast from the loft. We won’t be able to see this way from the loft window, but it is an interesting perspective.

 
Loft View to North

View to South
11 May, 2007.
And here is the view to the south, from the big loft.

 
Loft view to South

Nails
07 May, 2007.
So what do you do when you break a fingernail while building the little house?

You pull out the dremmel tool and fix it, of course!

 
Nails

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