Sheeting the Garage

Work began this week on sheeting the garage. Because the walls are higher than 8 feet it had to be done in two sections. The lower portions as can be seen in this photo are simply covered with 4x8 sheets of 1/2" OSB.

Thank God for nail guns. Using a nail gun saves an incredible amount of time when there's a lot of nailing to be done. When installing exterior sheeting it helps to have someone on the inside to let you know if you miss hitting the studs in the center of the sheet. Too many misses and the building inspector won't be happy.

As I said earlier the walls were too tall to do in one section. The top 3 1/2 feet were done separately once the entire garage lower portion was finished.

Because these walls top out a little over 13 feet scaffolding was used to make sheeting the top section easier.

This is the shop or working section of the garage. To give it some scale, the window on the far wall is 4 feet wide.

After the entire garage is sheeted we needed to start on the gable ends in preparation for the roof installation. This particular garage has two different roof systems. The front half (parking area) uses prefabricated trusses which allow for an attic storage area. The second half (working area) uses a traditional rafter system. Because our rafter system includes the roof over the "shop" area which has a different angle this rafter system will have a peak ridge beam and another support beam where the main garage and "shop" roofs come together. If this is a little confusing, don't worry.... all will become clear in the next couple weeks as you see the roof in this section come together.

In order to make building the 3 gable ends a little easier, one of the trusses was used as a template. Here the truss is supported by saw horses and the 2x6 framed gable end is built right on top of the truss. Care must be taken when building gable ends because not all are going to be exactly the same size as the trusses. In our case the front and rear gable ends are actually 3 1/2" (the width of a 2x4) shorter than the trusses. This is to allow for the out lookers which mount the front and rear fascia. The center gable is exactly the same size as the trusses since there will be no out lookers where the two roof systems meet.

Once the gable has been framed we removed it from the truss and leaned it up against the center wall to make room for the next one. The gable you see here is the front gable end and is not complete in this picture. Shortly after this photo was taken the framing for the window was added which completed the structure.

The center gable must have a pocket for the LVL ridge beam. In this case the beam is 3 1/4" wide, 16 1/4" tall, and 27 feet long.

Two down and one to go. When the last gable is framed we will lay them down on the floor and sheet each one with 1/2" OSB. Anyone want to help lift them up to the top of the walls?

Here is a composite photo just for the "car guys". This photo gives you a good look at the two 18x8 foot doors. The front half (parking area) is 25' deep. The back half (working area) is almost twice as deep and just as wide. Eat your heart out fellas. Once complete the garage will be covered with log siding. The log siding provided by Kuhns Brothers will make the garage indistinguishable from the rest of the house. You simply won't be able to tell where the real logs stop and the log siding on the garage begins.

That's it for another week. Next week big things will happen. Wednesday we will have our roofers back and a crane will be here to lift the gable ends, beams, and trusses into position. The roofers will then sheet the front half of the garage roof. We'll be busy the rest of the week installing the rafters in the "shop" and working areas of the garage as well as the bonus room above the kitchen. It's going to be a busy week.

Check back soon.