Closing Up

The fellows from Bellows have beenworking with their usual speed.  They have closed up the building and we are awaiting the metal roofing.  Their most recent doings included bracing the upper floor and adding a beam to stabilize the wall extension.  Then they tar-papered the roof.  So right now, things are fairly weather tight.  They also trimmed the rafters and added a facia board.  On the gable ends, they put in flying rafters and facia boards.  It looksvery nice. The building is really taking shape.

All closed up.

Trimmed rafters and facia boards.

Interior showing loft braces.  The new beam is at the very top of the photo.

The Boys From Bellows

Over the last two days the boys from Bellows Construction have been out working on the brewery.  They have made quite a bit of progress and are well ahead of schedule.  Their next step is to put on the roofing. Once that is done it will be time for a siding party!




A few hours into work on Day One.

 


Near the end on Day One.




View from the lower pasture at the end of Day Two.



More Professional Help

Not too much has been accomplished lately as I have been over-busy with farm stuff and it is now wedding season.  A while back Andy and I started the sheathing.  As you might guess this is somewhat difficult when done from ladders.  Andy, however, is a good sport and we accomplished a good bit in the time we had available.

Andy is also a professional builder and the strain of the slow going was beginning to tell a bit.  Finally, he said to me, "I'm a builder. You're a brewer.  If I have my crew here, we can get this done in a day. You need to be setting up the brewing side of things."  I do not doubt that he is correct.  Furthermore, I was not treasuring the idea of trying to hoist sheets of OSB 30 feet up a ladder to sheath the back part of the brewery. I have a thing about risking the lives of my volunteers. So I agreed to have Andy's boss gin up an estimate on finishing the roof and sheathing.

A few days later Barry and Andy came out to look at the place.  Like Andy, Barry is a nice guy with a lot of good ideas. The estimates he gave me are quite reasonable, so we have decided to go with his company to get the roof and sheathing done.  Hopefully this will help speed up the process. At any rate, I will not be doing much on the brewery as I am booked the next three weekends for weddings and other minutiae.

I am hoping that once things get back to normal, and the more dangerous work is done, we can have another work party.  It has been too long since we had one.

I will keep you all posted.

We got a few things done...