The last beam arrived, a few weeks late...but....

I ordered 5 beams 26 feet long and at least 24 inches at the butt end, but they could only ship 4 at the time. Last week they delivered the last one. So we called for a crane, the 100 ton one because of the length needed.


The beam belonged on the second floor and we are up on the fourth floor framing, so we had to drop the beam thru the deck joists.....never a dull moment.


I bought a Genie lift after the fire instead of renting another one, but the beam was 1,400 pounds and the Genie lift can only handle 800 safely. So we had to rent another lift to get the beam up in place.


In order to get the beam close to the wall they had to remove the OSB and make little ramps......:)


Up the ramp and then down the ramp as the Genie lift moved tight against the outside wall so we could lift the beam in place.


It's a tough job being a supervisor.....rotfl.


Because I am a little nuts about tight fits, everything is cut exactly if not just a little longer. So they had to make sure the beam went up straight and one side didn't get ahead of the other. It took 7-8 times to get the beam up in place and cut correctly, but once in place they strapped it and screwed it to the floor joists and the exterior wall.


Then these red cedar quarter cut post had to be cut and fit into place. There was a branch near the top that had been broken off when we removed them from the field. So the woodcravers cut a nice little something to dress it up.


Well there wasn't any room to make adjustments, so they notched the back of the post in order to slide it into place. This doesn't sound like much but it took over 2 hours for each post, set it up, slide it in, back it out, lay it down and recut it, then set it up, slide in, back it out, lay it down and recut it....on and on.


But with a little time and patience, it came together.


OK, with a little help from a chain saw too.......before anything can be put together the end and sides have to be stain or finished instead of setting stuff and then try to make it look right. You can see the bottom of the beam has been stained before the post was set......Time and patience!!