Prepping the Way for the Second Floor

Although I hadn’t taken many pictures, nor documented this phase too well, our next step in building our log home was to cut and place the 2×10 floor joists into hangers for the top floor bedroom, bathroom and loft.

That phase seems so simple - especially when the room below is evenly squared as in our log home’s case - but one thing I’ve learned is that everything takes twice as long as you allow when you’re building your own home. The weather got in our way (it was either raining or temperatures soared over 28 degrees celcius), we got in our own way (too many other projects and distractions going on), and we took a 5 day road trip that was purely business, but we considered it pleasure, just to be away from building a house for a while.

Of course once the joists were in place, the next phase was to glue the top surface and lay the plywood. Again, this is never as easy as it sounds since many of our tongue and groove plywood boards had to be trimmed before placement. The ‘joins’ or edges of each plywood board laid on the sub-floor surface should rest on a joist. I believe this ensures your floor is strong, and (hopefully) squeek free for many years.

We began at the front of the house (the top floor bedroom) and worked our way to the rear (top floor bathroom). Once one side of the house was finished, we placed a double header for the loft floor (which sits directly over our dining room) - laid joists and plywood on that.

I’m not certain that all my building terms are correct here so you’ll have to check out the photos as I place them here in the coming weeks, or leave a comment or question below. We are being mindful to photograph every step of the way while we build this log home. Nothing will be covered up, hidden, or left out in the documentation. Except, of course, my minimalistic approach to photography of this phase - the top floor, sub-floor.

The photo above shows Deniz Sarac and Eric Kleinoder on our top floor loft space. Deniz is my sister Lindsay’s husband (our new brother-in-law) who usually works in the entertainment industry on Celebrity Cruise Lines. This was Deniz’s vacation - a two week stay in Canada repairing my sister’s trailer and assisting Eric on building a log home. Thanks Deniz!