Beam Me Up, Scotty

With the beams on top of my mancave, it was now just a matter of sliding each one into place and affixing each it to the supporting stud wall below with mounting brackets.  As previously discussed, I settled on 16" on-center spacing which I determined (based upon discussions with friends and family in the engineering and construction professions) was the proper balance between structural integrity and aesthetics.

The process of getting each beam into place was a bit comical.  Envision if you will, one man, one ladder, and ten 24-foot long timber beams:

I'll admit, I was initially a bit intimidated, but then I started thinking....

Stone Henge

The Great Wall of China

 

The Pyramids

All of these incredible structures were made long before the advent of the modern crane and heavy machinery...so if these things could be built just with brute force and ingenuity then so could my mancave.  As it turned out, the solution wasn't all that innovative or difficult to execute.  Despite their large size, I was actually able to slide each end of the beam about 6-8 inches at a time.  So in a nutshell, the process was basically:

1. Move ladder to one end of beam
2. Climb up ladder
3. Slide end of beam 6-8 inches to the left
4. Climb down ladder
5. Carry ladder to opposite end of beam
6. Climb up ladder
7. Move end of beam 6-8 inches to the left
8. Climb down ladder
9. Repeat steps 1-8 as many times as necessary to get beam into correct location.

Granted, this was a rather monotonous approach, but effective nonetheless.  I decided the first beam should overhang the stud wall beneath it  by 1/2 inch...this would ensure that when the sheet rock/drywall was applied to the wall below that the finished surface of the drywall would be flush with the surface of the beam.  After this, it was just a matter of affixing the beam to the stud wall  with a specially designed bracket.  Once affixed, I would repeat steps 1-9 above until the next beam was in place.

One down, nine to go!

Two down, 3rd almost there

Okay, I think you get the idea.  Basically, getting the beams in place required a ridiculous amount of repetition and time.  It was a slow process but rewarding nonetheless.  Between moving the ladder back and forth a half dozen times and nailing in 6 brackets per beam, each beam took about an hour to complete.  

As slow as it may have been, however, there are few things in this world that make a guy feel more manly that moving giant timber beams (even if it is only a few inches at a time) and nailing them into place with a large framing hammer.  Another perk of this phase of the job:  the entire outbuilding smelled like a Coastal Pine Forest:

Because I only have a few hours each week to work on my project, however, the process of getting all the beams into position ended up getting strung out over multiple weeks.  

  

By the time I finished, the novelty of this process had worn off and I was just looking forward to the next step....but that's another post for another time.