Installing The First Structural Beam ｜ A-Frame Cabin Addition

Previously, we finished up the exterior portion of the foundation forms. So, it's about one more day with the formwork and we're done growing ripped concrete. The addition on our A-frame house will have four bedrooms, as well as a homestead kitchen for food processing, canned goods, dairy and soap supplies, and also a safe room. It's a massive build that has been years in the making and won't be accomplished without its fair share of mistakes. We're going to do it a third time when we test, you know what I mean? As we inch closer to the completion of the foundation, we turn our focus to the first structural beam of the build. So, the exterior of the foundation forms are all up and locked into place. We do have a little bit more work that we need to do on the interior portion of the forms. There's some gaps that we need to fill in, but we are short on plywood, so instead of focusing on that, we're going to go ahead and jump to building the beam that's going to span from the safe room all the way down to the exterior portion of the wall closest to the powerhouse. With that beam's floor, it's going to hold up the entire first floor floor. Floor joists are going to attach to the existing portion of the A-frame. They're going to span across and go to the new foundation wall. And then, the beam we're going to do goes right down through the center. It's going to hold all the floor joists up to hold the center of the floor up. We're going to be using 2x12s as a base for the beam to sit on, so once we mark center on the pier footings, we can go through, get a measurement, cut down the 2x12s, and attach them using TAPCONs to each of the pier footings. The beam's going to run on top of the piers all the way down, so they come over this way towards the safe room wall, and right now, we're actually waiting on a piece of angle iron to bolt against here. The beam will sit on top of the angle iron. We don't have that, so temporarily, we're going to take a 2x12. I'm going to go ahead and TAPCON it directly to the concrete to hold this thing in place. All right, so let's check the line and make sure we have this beam centered. You on the line, girl? Yeah, I'm good. Good. I'll just put them right here, put it on top, and I'll just start sliding them down. We'll take them one at a time. You know what I mean? All right. So we're going to start out with the beam, and our span is roughly 40 feet across, and our 2x12s are all 16 feet in length. So we'll start out with one 2x12x16. We'll have two of them actually butt up like this, and we'll take a third one and sandwich them with the other side right in the middle. So it's eight feet both ways from the center direction, where it's two 16-footers coming in. I hope that makes sense. That's how I see the easiest way of us doing this. You want it directly on the red line? Yep. Right to the edge. Yep. You got it. Just like that, girl. Perfect. So I think what we should do is now get the other piece. We'll stop it in right here at eight feet, and we'll start lagging it together, and that's going to help if we want to tip. Then we'll go on the other side, put the next 16-foot piece down, and we'll come back in and start scouting things in. All right. This crown side up right here, girl. Some people know it's spring and summer because the leaves start turning green and the birds are chirping. I know it's spring and summer because we're lifting 2x12s. We seem to always be framing it as spring and summer, right? The heavy wood, too. I know. So we are four 2x12s wide down at the safe room end of the house. Everything is lagged together, and now we're going to start constructing the beam down towards the powerhouse end of the house. This is going to be done a little bit differently. We actually decided to pull the form out. It was not in place yet, so it was pretty easy to do. We just pulled it out real quick, and now we can actually run the beam all the way down four inches into the footer wall, and we're going to pour the concrete around it. 16' 1 1⁄2". So we cut this at 7' 3 1⁄2". Once that's cut and put on, we cut this back at 15' 5". Put it on, we start rock and rolling the entire way down, and we're done. Do it again. Looks good. It does. It's a success. Huge success. If only the foundation walls were as easy as that beam. Yeah. I know. I wish, right? She's going to teach me how to make a bottle for a lamb hop. Oh, really? Mom can teach you that? Yes, I can. Okay. So I'm going to mark right here next to the 12. At 21. At 12. Aww. You're saying it backwards. 1, 2, 12. So this is how much water you're going to put in, and then I'll show you how much of the milk replacer to put in, okay? Milk replacer. Oh, I don't do it? Here you go. And a scoop. Yep. Ooh, that looks so good. Okay. Dip it. Dip in there. You're going to scoop and fill it up almost all the way to the top. That's a little too much. So dump it out a little. A little more. Okay. You can wash. Yeah. That's about good now. Let's put it in here. Pour, pour, pour, pour. Put your hand on the bottle. Perfect. Drop it back in. Okay, now we're going to wiggle this a little. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle back to back until it comes out. I'm so thirsty, Grandma. She's hungry. Yeah. Now you can make bottles all by yourself. Yeah, but I'm very nervous. That's okay. I'll help you. You're doing a good job. Still warm. It won't come out. Keep wiggling it. You're going to want to cover the top with a paper towel so that you can shake it. Shake it up. Here you go. So it doesn't spray. There you go. Go get her. Call her in. Mommy! We've been using a makeshift lid for the chicken brooder. It's been old Dura-Rock laying around the property. It actually worked out great. It kept a lot of heat in there when it was still cold out here. But now it's warm and it's time to change this thing out and do something more legit. So I got some 2x4s, some chicken wire, and with us getting a new lid on here, it's going to be a lot easier to work with the chickens also. You're such a good baby. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're so good. Lily. No. Come on, girl. That's a tip. No way. No. This is so nice. It's going to make taking care of the chicks so much easier because I was kind of fumbling with the Dura-Rock and just sliding it around so I could get in there with the feed and in there with the water. You can see them easily. Tell. Oh yeah. Versus trying to keep your head in there. Where they at? Yeah. And check to see how they're doing. So now we're just going to be able to flip this little lid up and get in there, take care of them. They're almost feathered out. They're getting really close. So it's not that much longer until they go out to pasture. No. And I think next year we could probably do it, put Dura-Rock back on top of this. Oh yeah. Early in the season. I agree. Because it worked out really well with the Dura-Rock. So we'll definitely do that again. It's not plannable. I know you all know how much we love our Helix mattress. Not only have we been sleeping on ours here at home for well over two years now, but we also put Helix mattresses in our vacation home for guests and our kids sleep on Helix mattresses. The Helix Kid Mattress, designed by Helix Sleep, is a premium mattress in a box designed specifically with growing kids' needs and preferences in mind. They feature a two-sided design. The firmer side is geared towards three to seven-year-olds who need more spinal support to aid in proper development of their growing bodies, while the softer side was designed with kids eight to twelve in mind, who tend to favor mattresses with a more comforting feel. As a parent, my favorite thing about the Helix Kids Mattresses is that they are made without harmful chemicals. They have undergone extensive lead and phthalate testing to ensure their safety. The hypoallergenic cover is great for both moisture wicking and airflow, and the eco-friendly and plant-based durable water-resistant finish is both stain and water repellent. Plus, there's a microbe shield, which combats odor-causing bacteria to maintain hygiene. The Helix Kids Mattresses are made in the USA, have been tested and approved by medical doctors, sleep consultants, child behavioral specialists, and most importantly, real parents like us and kids who are ages three to twelve. Helix Kids Mattresses are guaranteed safe, comfortable, durable, and are conveniently shipped directly to your door for free within the US. There's a 10-year warranty, plus financing options with flexible payment plans, and you get a 100-night sleep trial. It gives us peace of mind knowing that our kids are sleeping safe and sound on a mattress that is the right fit for their bodies. You guys have heard me rave about how much we love our Helix Mattress, and our kids' experience on their Helix Mattress has been just as amazing. If you're looking for a mattress for your kids, be sure to click on our link in the description box below to visit helixsleep.com slash wildwonderful to get 20% off your Helix Kids Mattress plus two free pillows. Now let's get back to the build. So the beam's all beefed up, we have it all lagged together, it's lagged down into the piers themselves, and we're solid. So on a side note, we did use pressure-treated because who knows how long these tasks last for because we do have a lot of things going on at other locations. We might need to pick up and move for a few weeks, so we want this thing to be out in the weather and be weather-resistant, that's why we use pressure-treated and not standard dry lumber because who knows, it could just stand for a few months. Not planning on that happening. I'm doing my best to keep him focused, I can assure you of that. But we have it just in case, so that's why it's treated, and it looks good, it's nice and solid. It feels good because it looks like we're moving on to the next step, which is really exciting. Yes. But... We're like, get that little bit of stuff done, concrete, and we're framing. So it's right there. It is right there, but first we gotta do a little more rebar. It never ends! We're almost there, guys. I promise. We're almost done. The east side of the house is the part that is lagging the most, so we're gonna start by finishing up the rebar, and then we can start wrapping around the interior with the last of the forms. This is where the portion of the new build actually turns to the concrete and ties into the side of the house, and on top of that concrete, there's gonna be a beam that goes all the way across over to the center of the house. What that does is it ties the new addition to the exterior of the old house inside the A-frame, and that's where all the floor joists are gonna sit on top of. All of these forms were from the safe room? Yes, we used up the vast majority of them, too. But I feel like it got us pretty far. I'm actually quite impressed. It got us all the way around and partially double-sided. We have a few... We have a few left. So, as you guys know, we have been reusing the forms from the concrete pour for the safe room for the entire foundation of the addition build, and we got all the way around the entire exterior and a portion of the interior, but we're running low, like super, super low. So the challenge is going to be digging through everything that we have left over and seeing what we can use. We could use a lot of the scrap pieces that we still have for the corners and the smaller portions, but we're definitely going to need some new plywood and to build some new forms. And new 2x4s also. And some new 2x4s. But we're going to see how far we can get using the rest of what we have left over and make work what we can. Let's go start digging. Fun part. They're heavy. We have a pile right there, we have another pile right back there. Yeah. It looks like I have three here, three and a half, four, five, four, five, six pieces of plywood. We're going to be close. We actually have more than I thought. Really? Really. Yes. That's good news. That's great news. Because I actually say I ordered more originally. In my opinion, I ordered it for the entire thing, going all the way around to do it all once. It didn't happen that way. And I grossly underestimated how much I needed. So now that we took everything off of the safe room, I'm hoping it should be enough to go around. Or right there towards the end. All right. Cool. We'll see. All right. Let's put some work in. I'm ready to be done. Yeah. One, two. For some reason, I got the light side. I got all the leverage. You do all the hard work. You want to trade spots, girlfriend? No. No? I don't need no man. Okay. Just with the exterior forms, we're going to do the same thing on the interior. Let's drive rebar down so when we pour the concrete, nothing blows out. Because if it does blow out, the walls come in like that. We want to eliminate that from happening. You know what the trick is to getting this foundation done? What's that? You just got to keep showing up every single day. Definitely right about that. 100%. Oh, it is an effort. You know? Put it in. You'll get there eventually. Don't even think about it. All right. You ready? Yeah. One, two, three. Oh, stop. You made my hole. Ready? Yeah. One, two, three. Hold up. Stop. Good job. Packages are here. We have some serious unpacking to do at the chapter house. I can't wait. I know. Great to decorate. Yeah.