Framing this roof has been quite an adventure.   While I’ve re-shingled several roofs I’ve never actually framed a roof before in my life, not even a doghouse roof.  Well, maybe a birdhouse roof.   This house certainly doesn’t have the most complicated roof line in the world, but it was far from simple.   Where a simple gable roof would have two roof planes, one either side of the ridge, my house – with two perpendicular gables and a shed roof coming off of each one – has six different intersecting roof planes (the front porch will add another but it isn’t built yet).

I began by tearing off and replacing the front gable and framing the shed roof on the east side of the house.  This is where all the learning happened.  I spent a lot of time problem-solving, especially at the overhangs and at the intersection of the gable and shed roofs.   It all seems pretty simple now that I’ve done it and I understand how it all fits together, but it  took me a about a month and a half to grind out that roof over the front half of the house.  Having learned how it all works, completing the remainder of the roof only took about half that time.    I went with a craftsman style open cornice (exposed rafter tails) with beadboard under the overhangs.   Each rafter was cut with plumb cuts at the ridge and tail, birdsmouth at the top plate and a decorative chamfer routed on each side of the tail.   In addition, a 3/4 inch strip was cut off the top of each rafter tail for the beadboard to sit down in, allowing me to run the plywood decking over top of it and all the way down to the fascia.   

I finally got proficient enough with google sketchup to be able to use it as my primary layout tool.   Old-timers will be horrified to learn that I still haven’t the slightest idea how to layout rafters using a rafter square. Though I’m sure it can’t be all that difficult and I may do it that way next time just to learn how it’s done.   Here’s a screenshot of my rafter layout for the front gable -

I can use this to find exact angles and measurements anywhere on the rafter.  Sketchup is a fantastic tool and well worth the time to learn how to use it.   The google tutorial videos were extremely helpful as were a series of videos relating specifially to using sketchup for carpentry that I found here on Fine Homebuilding’s Digital Jobsite page.
   
      After getting all my rafters cut I applied two coats of nontoxic, biodegradable milk paint  from the “Real Milk Paint Company” using the instructions in these videos describing the use of milk paint outdoors.   I’ve been looking forward to working with milk paint for awhile and so far I’ve been happy with it.   I can’t stand the thought of covering something beautiful, non-toxic, and biodegradable (wood!) with toxic plastic paint (and don’t be fooled by “zero VOC” – it’s still a toxic soup) and milk paint claims to be just the thing I’ve been looking for.  I’m interested to see how it holds up in the long run.   The black strips between the rafters are Cor-a-vent brand soffit vents which seemed to be a more attractive alternative to the little vent plugs I commonly see.

Here’s the shed roof being framed over the lower east side of the front gable.  The overhang here is only a few inches because of this corner’s proximity to the property line.

And the decking finally nailed down

Deconstructing the south gable…

 And the rebuild…

 This is the guide I used to cut the rafters on this gable

Because of the orientation of the rafters on the rear gable, the span was quite a bit shorter than those on the front gable so I used 2×6 rafters but sistered on separate 2×8 tails to match the 2×8 rafter tails on the front of the house.  Here they are with 2 coats of milk paint.

 And installed…

fly rafter in place

And tying it all together in the front

WATERPROOF!

 replaced a load-bearing wall with a beam

 pulled out a bunch of concrete

 dug a 90 foot long trench from the road to the house

  and installed a new sewer

 installed insulated skirting between the piers

 rebuilt and skirted all the piers along the front side of the house

 and skirted the previously rebuilt piers on the east side

 then a coat of “quickwall”

 decided to take out the second chimney

 rebuilt the final section of floor

 removed the roof over the front half of the house

built the new bearing wall

 installed ceiling joists

 new ridgeboard

 cut rafters

and we’ve almost got a roof…

 I might just hang this one on the wall as art, homage to an era.   

The DAK (dumb ass kids) posse wuz here.  

     Back in December I got the rear addition rebuilt (after completely demolishing the old addition and repairing/leveling the old foundation as mentioned somewhere in an old post).   Other than that it’s been a slow, slow winter!  It was generally too cold to have the kids there with me so I’ve had a couple of hours in the morning a few days a week to get over there.   That’s changing rapidly as spring fights its way back to life and hopefully the pace will pick up substantially….What house-time I did have I mostly used to clear out the remaining jungle in the backyard.   I got all of the fence-lines completely cleared out (and paid for it with a nasty case of poison ivy the past two weeks), and got a survey which gave us about two feet more back yard!  I transplanted a strip of bamboo along the back which I’ll soon continue up the side of the backyard and which will hopefully survive and fill out into a nice evergreen privacy screen.    I moved my enormous backyard stash of oak flooring into the house from under tarps and have dramatically reduced the overall trashiness of the property which makes me feel much better about life.   Here’s some photos….

New mud-sill bolted down on newly repaired/leveled foundation…

 New joists….

 New (old) subfloor…

 2×6 wall framing (for extra insulation) and sheathing…

 from the outside….

The oak subfloor that I salvaged from the old church last year provided enough wood for me to sheath the entire house – Except for this last wall.   So I had to buy three sheets of plywood to finish it off.  Amazing how much faster plywood goes up than the diagonal planks!

More exciting has been the ongoing renovation of our dear camper home.   I framed out the walls separating the bedroom and added a curtain.  I refinished a moldy old dresser which turned out quite nicely and gives us a good deal more storage.   Best of all, I built a matching loft beds for the kids over our bed in the back.  Used all salvaged wood and local bamboo for the rails….They love ‘em!

Unlike the current project, the old house didn’t need extensive exterior work.  Just a roof, entry door, retaining wall, split-rail fence, new porch posts, and back deck.   That little bit really spruced it up though.  And it was all paid for with a big ol’ check from our insurance company after a hail storm early on.    The retaining wall was built using “urbanite” – old slabs of concrete from demolished sidewalks, driveways, and the like.   I collected it all from a concrete dump site north of town.  It was dry-laid and turned out looking not unlike natural stone from a few feet away.  The fence was split from local cedar by a local guy who did fences on the side.  The wooden storm door was a dumpster find, stripped and refinished.   And the porch posts, from a friend’s uncle, were local cedar cut on his portable sawmill.   

 

The back bedroom was the only room where the original hardwood floor was un-salvageable, even after a mighty effort with the drum sander…

The front bedroom was in significantly better condition…

The hallway between the two bedrooms got overhauled with a new bookshelf carved out of a bit of bedroom closet space.  Most of the bookshelf, as well as all of the interior window trim throughout the house, was built with lumber salvaged from giant pallets discarded outside the glass shop. 

The bathroom was the only room to be completely gutted.   Conveniently it was also the smallest.  I reused the shower doors, toilet, and tub.  The vanity was built from an old wooden bedframe found on the side of the road, with a top made from a chunk of salvaged bowling lane. 

The kitchen got a new window, a desk, and a whole lot more light.   I built the kitchen cabinets and doors using almost entirely salvaged lumber.  The backsplash was a compilation of different sets of tiles collected at the habitat restore over several months.   And the counter tops, like the bathroom vanity top, were made from salvaged bowling lanes.   We got rid of the dishwasher and the garbage disposal – who needs ‘em.

  

And lastly the living room, which got a woodstove and, finally, some real curtains. 

There you have it!   Maybe I’ll have some before/afts of the new house by next year.

been getting some windows installed……..
got rid of a chimney…..

  

getting started on rebuilding the rear addition.   Began by making a temporary roof support, tearing down the old walls, then chinking the foundation blocks with mortar…….

Mine didn’t.

So I’ve been replacing the piers as I move around the house.   In this photo you can see a corner of the house and the two sandstone rocks that formed the foundation there.  Wide flat one on the bottom, squarish one on top.  That’s it. 

New hole with rebar drilled into sandstone base.  

 Concrete poured

 New block mortared in place.    The guy I got the new sandstone foundation blocks from is a 5th generation stone worker from Means Stone.  He said that his family helped build Sunrise up here on the hill.   He told me about how they blast these enormous slabs of stone off the mountainside using black powder (not dynamite – it creates tiny fractures throughout the stone that later split), then haul the slab back to their place to cut up.  He said the slab that these blocks were being cut from began as a piece 17 ft long and a dozen feet wide.  It can take several days of slowly tapping in metal wedges to get the first split in that huge piece of stone.   As the pieces get smaller and smaller the splitting gets faster.   Back in the “old days” they had a different method for getting a slab to separate from the mountain.   They would dig narrow holes by hand, one guy twisting the bit, another one pounding it into the ground with a sledgehammer.   Then drop a poplar log down into the hole, fill it with water and come back a few days later.    The water swelled the log, acting as a wedge to split the slab away from the mountain. 

 Front of the house newly framed and the sheathing going up…

 Then wrapped…

       Cronon opens with a description of wilderness that resonates with me – “The last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness.” 
       That’s a  definition that works for me.  I like it.  Then, in the next breath, it’s “quite profoundly a human creation”. 
       What the hell? 
       He goes on; “It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it’s a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made.”  
       Absurd.   Wilderness can’t be contaminated by civilization?   Contaminating wilderness is the story of civilization. 
       I read on; “Wilderness itself is no small part of the problem.”  (‘The problem’ being civilization’s abusive relationship with the nonhuman world.)  
      This man is insane.  He is engaging in one of civilization’s favorite tricks – blaming the victim.  Not only is he insane, he is talking out of both sides of his mouth as he uses the next full paragraph to illustrate how “the nonhuman world we encounter in wilderness is far from being merely our own invention.”
       Oh really, what happened to it being “profoundly a human creation”?
By this early point in the essay I’m simply feeling irritated and somewhat confused. 
      With the intro out of the way, he launches into the meat – his historical analysis. 
      My initial reaction is that he is obviously rooted – firmly rooted – in a Euro-centric, Christian-centric world view.  Cronon’s historical Wilderness was “deserted, savage, desolate, barren, a waste” where people felt “bewilderment or terror”
      Sure, if you’re a “civilized” Christian.   How about the pagans of old Europe that the Christians killed off, co-opted, and supplanted.  Were they terrified of wilderness?  How about the Native Americans?  Did they exist in this (waste?!)land for tens of thousands of years in a state of bewilderment?
       No, of course not. 
       The history of wilderness I guess then depends on who writes the history.  But we already knew that. 
       Then we get into the biblical examples of our historical wilderness.   Not exactly an objective source since Christianity itself is a fine example of an Earth-hating, alienated religion.  (Where do you go when you die?  Oh, heaven.  Paradise is out there, not here.   Earth is only our stepping stone.  You are not a part of it, so stomp it up.)   Valuable only to the extent that it could be “reclaimed and turned toward human ends” nature, “in its raw state, had little or nothing to offer civilized men and women”.
       Alright fine, so lets stop talking about wilderness from the viewpoint of the civilized, since they have obviously proven themselves insane.  These places, ALL places, could only be considered wasteland to those who were already alienated from them.  Cronon says “The wastelands that had once seemed worthless….”
       Again, worthless to whom?  The pagans, the Native Americans, the aborigine?  No, it was only worthless to the Christians; and to the civilized. 
       And then comes the transformation.  That miraculous time in which wilderness (for the civilized, or a couple of them anyway) undergoes metamorphoses from wasteland to priceless treasure.  It became sacred.  
       And just in time, considering that the vast majority of the civilized, for whom wilderness was not and is not sacred, were plotting, as was and is their way, to obliterate every last inch of wild land, wild animal, and wild human.  
       Then Cronon introduces the doctrine of the sublime.  And it is here, in this paragraph that I begin, finally, to see that it is not only Cronon’s historical perception of the meaning of wilderness that differs from my own, it is his current perception of wilderness, his working definition.   He says that God “would most often be found in those vast, powerful landscapes where one could not help feeling insignificant and being reminded of one’s own mortality. Where were these sublime places? The eighteenth century catalog of their locations feels very familiar, for we still see and value landscapes as it taught us to do.” 
        Maybe he still values landscapes the way he was taught, maybe the mass of the insane civilized value them this was too.  But I don’t.   And here I realize that Cronon is not talking to me.  I am not the audience.  I know this because my wilderness is not confined to the powerful landscapes of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.  My wilderness, the land that I value, the land that I hold sacred, is not defined by the vastness of it’s terrain or its remoteness.  It includes those vast powerful places, to be sure, but the wilderness that matters to me on a daily basis, the wilderness that I long for, is the land that makes my home.   It is the stream at the bottom of the hill, just behind all the backyards, where the hemlock branches reach out across the water and which turns into a tumbling chocolate torrent after a hard rain; it is the wetland formed by the beaver pond on Hans creek a short walk from the old farmhouse where the deer come to drink   It is all those humble everyday places here in Appalachia and elsewhere that are being daily attacked, obliterated, destroyed, poisoned. 
       Cronon is speaking only of those places that our culture has determined to be sacred enough for protection. Thus, most my irritation at the first half of his essay hinges on the fact that the word wilderness seems to bring to his mind a whole host of historical myths and ironies that are meaningless to me and my vision of wilderness and basically irrelevant to my use of the word.
       Like definitions of freedom, the meaning of wilderness can be quite personal.  For me wilderness has little to do with whether or not a given place is inhabited by humans.  I am much more concerned with the manner in which those humans interact with the land – with their home.  For me wilderness is not the “original garden”, “the frontier”, or “the sacred sublime”.  Wilderness for me is defined simply by the relative absence of the activities of industrial civilization and it’s despoiling wake.   The more that the activities of industrial civilization destroy the life-giving characteristics of a place, the less that I consider that place to be wild.  Wilderness does not mean devoid of people – it means in balance with people, which means devoid of (or healing from) industrial civilization.   
       We find out near the end of his essay that Cronon actually shares a similar view of wilderness.  He is not critiquing wilderness so much as he is critiquing what he sees as the mainstream meaning of the word,  Which he defined by it’s European/Christian historical context and our current legal standard of “the wilderness area” where humans are not permitted to freely live – a wilderness uninhabitable by humans.    “By now”, he says, “I hope it is clear that my criticism in this essay is not directed at wild nature per se, or even at efforts to set aside large tracts of wild land, but rather at the specific habits of thinking that flow from this complex cultural construction called wilderness. It is not the things we label as wilderness that are the problem—for nonhuman nature and large tracts of the natural world do deserve protection—but rather what we ourselves mean when we use the label.”   
        By this point I’m mostly with him.  And now I understand why he chose to focus only on this culture’s historical feelings toward wilderness and exclude the many historical examples of humans living more or less symbiotically with their homelands.   He simply wants his readers and his fellow earth-loving citizens to direct more focus toward creating an idea of wilderness that is relevant to us, a part of us, on a daily basis, that is intimately a part of our daily lives, rather than a place that’s “out there”, isolated from us as our culture has taught. 
       I absolutely agree.  Every time, every single time, that I walk in the forest, through the stream, through my neighborhood,  I am acutely aware of how these places have been and are being abused by humans and I think a lot about the ways in which these places could be healed.  I am also aware of how the ecological health of these places affects our heath, happiness, and freedom (to give just one example – polluted water is detrimental to human health, which in turn decreases our level of happiness, and reduces our level of freedom by forcing us, once again, into the industrial wage economy because we are left with no other choice but to purchase the clean drinking water we need to be healthy and happy – the water that used to be free.)  As Cronon phrases it, “Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means not idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for better or worse we call home. Most of our most serious environmental problems start right here, at home, and if we are to solve those problems, we need an environmental ethic that will tell us as much about using nature as about not using it.” and “If wilderness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world—not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both.”
      Right on.  This is why I am fascinated not only by wilderness but also permaculture, natural building, personal health, primitive skills – they are all facets of living “rightly in the world”. 
      I do have a few bones to pick with Cronon however.  It is important not to devalue the importance of legally articulated and established wilderness areas in a culture that has zero respect for the land.  The primary goal of “Wilderness areas” is simply to make industrial activity off-limits to just a few tiny spots on this earth.   Because if it isn’t off-limits to industry then industry will take it – will destroy it – and not in some out-there spiritual way but in the very practical sense that the water will no longer be clean enough for a human to drink, or for a fish to live in.  If the few remaining stands of old-growth redwoods had not been bought up and protected they would be gone.  Every last one.  Along with every species that depends on them for survival.   If the Cranberry Wilderness here in W.V. wasn’t legally protected wilderness then I guarantee the loggers and miners and gas drillers would be there, taking it.  If the everglades weren’t protected, the developer scum would have filled it up and converted it to strip malls and suburbs years ago.  It is vitally important that there be places that industry cannot directly destroy. (I say directly because we know that they still do so indirectly.  Acid rain, air and water pollution, and invasive species care not about our invisible boundaries marking the “Wilderness”.) 
      There is also much to be said for wilderness areas large enough to get lost in.  In a world where every inch of land has been claimed and posted, a certain freedom can only be found in a landscape where one is free to wander relatively unhindered by the ubiquitous ‘no trespassing’ sign.  
       Cronon also tries to turn wilderness into a class issue, claiming that it’s just the elite who celebrate wilderness and that people living (working) close to the land don’t defend it.   “Ever since the nineteenth century,” he says, “celebrating wilderness has been an activity mainly for well-to-do city folks. Country people generally know far too much about working the land to regard unworked land as their ideal.”     In my experience, a person’s economic class or whether they are “city folk” or “country people” is completely irrelevant to their propensity to defend wilderness.   Most people in our culture, whether urban or rural, would (and do) gladly destroy every last piece of wild land to make a buck from it.  It is only a few (the sane) who can see the incalculable value, for them and for every generation that follows them, in a healthy landscape.   It isn’t just, or even primarily, privileged urban folk who defend the land.  Here in Appalachia, for example, resistance to strip mining both in the 1970s and in more recent years was initiated by rural people directly impacted by the mining.  Ultimately though, I don’t care who is defending the land, as long as someone is.   Even if wilderness really was only being defended by wealthy urbanites, would that somehow make it any less right?
       Finally, I need to address what Cronon calls his “principal objection to wilderness”.   He believes that wilderness “may teach us to be dismissive or even contemptuous of humble places and experiences”, that “wilderness tends to privilege some parts of nature at the expense of others”, and that  “any way of looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature — as wilderness tends to do — is likely to reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior.”    Let me, in closing, place blame where blame is properly due.   It is not Wilderness that teaches contempt, privilege, and separation from nature – it is our Civilization.

I spotted this fine collection of bumper stickers this afternoon.  Now, I’m no big fan of Obama.  However, if his energy plan really could be summed up in one word, and that word was bicycle! then I’d be behind him 100%.  Come to think of it, that would make a decent health care policy too. 

Don’t miss George W on the right saying “MISS ME YET?”.  
Hmm.  Let’s see…..Nope.