The Carport

Framing's too exciting to take a break for the finished roof, so we just kept framing.  We finally (almost) finished up the concrete work, pouring a terrace below the library, the carport slab, the breezeway between the house and carport, and the back porch.  You can now begin to make out the carport taking shape on the left.

Here's the view from the house, looking back toward the carport, and the root cellar underneath.  The stair up to the carport will be on the right side, against the taller concrete block wall.  The block wall on the left will be a low seating wall. 

This is our view from the carport itself, looking back toward the house.  We'll back-fill to bring grade up to the level of the carport after we strip the forms.  You can't help but notice the maze of scaffolding we had to set up to frame this roof.  Keep in mind that on the other side of the carport slab, there's a 9' drop to the breezeway slab, so the ridge is 26' above concrete at that point.

Here's how things are looking from the north...  That's the small back porch slab we poured, outside the kitchen.  At the ridge of the carport is a 50' x 14" LVL ridge beam that we placed by hand, as with every other stick of wood in this house.  It was nerve-wracking, but honestly not as difficult as I expected when the day finally came.  The two lower beams are 4x12 fir, spanning 28' until we get our columns in place.  Stay tuned...

I like this shot through the trees as you pull into the carport.  You can really get a sense of how close we are on some of the clearances.  It was threading a needle to place this house on the site without losing the trees that made it so special to us.