What would happen if you walked around the edge of your thinking and found there a shimmering winged unicorn? Would you ride him?What if you stood looking up at the night sky, and a tiny star flew down and settled comfortably in your palm?Would you caress it? What if you discovered that seemingly imaginary and amazing things were possible all along and quietly waiting for you to say hello?What then?Would you believe in magic?
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."(attr. to Goethe)
Yesterday and today were picture perfect beach days, with a light northeast wind blowing, less humidity, and slightly lower temperatures. I drove up to the lot on Friday by myself and back again today with Vince. The first floor trusses are completed, and we hope the framing will begin next week. Although engineered for structure, the trusses have an aesthetic beauty in their shape and balance, casting shadows on the sand in symmetrical patterns. I met a beautiful little beagle named Sandy Beach Paws, on site for the day on Friday with Jimmy, her daddy.
Here's a little video taken from the peak of our frontal dune. This is the beach that we will see every day when the house is finished. I thought Vince would enjoy watching it when he is having long days at work, especially since the sky and the sea were so incredible today.
Yesterday, Karl and I went up to the lot to check on the progress with the girders and the trusses. The work with the girders is complete except for some of the strapping, and the trusses were going up.This piece of the work is so important, because these are the bones of the house, like the bones in a person’s hips that support everything else.
When I was a little girl going to First Methodist church in Henderson, I would hear the phrase “gird up your loins” and think that the preacher said to put a girdle on the lions.Back then, most of the older women I knew struggled miserably into girdles to look their best on Sunday, so that didn’t seem like a great idea for lions at all!The verb, “gird,” means, among other things, “to encircle or bind with a flexible band.” When the word “undergird” first entered the English language in the 16th century, it meant to “make secure underneath,” by passing a rope or chain underneath, as for a ship.That literal sense of the word is out of use, but in the 19th century, “undergird” picked up the figurative meaning of “strengthen” or “support” that now gives us the word, “girder,” meaning a horizontal piece supporting a structure.For our house, the girders are 2”x12” pressure treated boards that are set in the pilings using seat cuts.They are connected to the pilings with 2” x 18” double dipped galvanized steel straps and bolts. The seat cut is a horizontal cut that provides a secure placement for the girder. In this case, the girders are placed as doubles within the piling system, so there are two girders in each piling.I wondered if cutting into the piling would weaken it, but the International Building Code and Miami-Dade Building Code allows for up to 50% of the piling to be cut for girders. (That begs the question of piling size, since more than half of a 10” square piling still leaves more wood that exactly half of an 8” square piling. Vince guesses that it is kept at 50% to keep it simple, since most projects don’t have an engineer on site.) The girders run the length of the house, from north to south and provide support for the trusses, which run the width of the house, from east to west.All girders are strapped to the pilings with 2” x 1/8” thick double dipped galvanized steel. (see foundation drawings) 4 sets of girders.
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a framework comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight slender members whose ends are connected at joints. The subsections of the trusses are rectangles, and diagonal 2x4’s form the triangles which provide the stiffness. Trusses work to distribute the loads of forces pushing and pulling the house.Our trusses were engineered by Johnny Ghee at International Forest Products.By knowing that four sets of girders would provide intermediate load bearing points (one on each end and two in between), he was able to design strong trusses that would not be too heavy.In addition to the structural integrity of trusses, they also provide an open structure for services, like water and sewerage, coming into and out of the house.
Trusses are not new, and they work in many different ways.When I saw Stuart use the fork lift to place the truss on the deck, I realized that the Wright Brothers airplane was basically an open parallel truss, like these.Reading more, I found that trusses were much, much older than that!
Marcus Vetruvius Pollio (b. about 80 BC) was a Roman architect and military engineer in the time of Emperors Gajus Julius Caesar and Augustus.He devised the Vitruvian trinity of Firmitas (strength, stiffness, durability), Utilitas (use or function), and Venustas (form, beauty, aesthetics) as the key to design.Vetruvius discusses trusses in the fourth of his books on Architecture.The ancient Egyptians used rope trusses to strengthen the long beams on ships as early as 1250 BC.That’s a long time ago!
Here is a slideshow with views of the house as planned. We'll use silver gray siding with white trim and a darker gray roof. (Use the pause button under each picture to take a longer look.) The slideshow is a bit small, but it's a start!
Obviously, this is my first video. I was completely intrigued by how much thought, preparation, and sheer hard work goes into getting pilings in the ground, especially our extra long pilings! The augur, the expert management of the crane, the jetted water, the pushing and pulling by the guys...just a tremendous effort. The best part is at the end when the piling is standing straight and tall, and everyone steps back in relief.
