Exceptional week at the ranch. Got the second story floor joists put up, and all the decking down. It wasn’t without its complications, however. I ordered the 20 engineered wooden I-beams from McCoy’s with specific instructions to group them into 5’s so that I could lift them with my tractor. When they got to the ranch I was astonished. Not only were all 20 banded together, but they were elevated 10ft off the top of the truck on OSB cribbing. You see, the beams were 48ft long! Nichole at McCoy’s assured me they had delivered long loads before, and that she could easily get a permit. Well – something went wrong. In order to avoid the oversized load, they decided to elevate the beams so they could put 10ft over the cab of the truck – thus preventing it from hanging over the end. How was I to offload 2000lbs+ from 15ft in the air? Fortunately my builders had left their skytrak and it turned out to be a non-issue, but really, what were they thinking? Could they not have told me? I had been in contact with them all day to ensure they were on schedule to deliver. Nichole escorted the truck to the ranch and I asked her what she would have done if I wasn’t able to get them off – blank stare.
Anyway, got the beams offloaded and rolled them into the shop bay on PVC pipe in preparation for the next challenge – hoisting them up onto the walls. I enlisted Michael, Molly, Jacob, & Katelyn to muscle them up. It turned out to be a rather easy endeavor. We used the headache rack on Michael’s truck and just slid them up and over – with Katelyn and Molly helping along the leading edge with 2x4s to keep them above subsequent walls. We got all the beams up there in about 2hrs (and could have done it faster if we hadn’t tried a few “easier” ways) and Katelyn, Molly, and I set and nailed them all in place before the day was done. Heck, we even managed to put in a few sheets of decking.
The following day, and a few evenings into the week, we had all the decking down. There is a lot of space up there, and someday I will finish it out to be quite the man-cave (or guest quarters).
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