Today was the day when the big vigas went into the house.

We spent most of the day yesterday planning and preparing for this. In order to finish them, we are putting the vigas in at a lower height than they’ll eventually go (ultimately, they’ll be pressed against the top of the ceiling) . Then later we’ll jack them up to the top.

To get the vigas in, we planned to use a backhoe with forklifts to push the vigas into the side of the house. On the outside wall they’d go through, we’d built headers. We also built a box with rollers on top of it to help ease each viga in. (They are incredibly heavy.) The box was leveled on platforms we built for each of the five viga locations.

Once the ends of the vigas were pushed in, they’d sit on scaffolding in the middle of the house. We built a strong box on top of the scaffolding to hold the vigas.

Once the vigas were on the scaffolding, we’d push them to the other side, where they’d rest on top of the glulam.

So that was the plan.

And amazingly enough, it went pretty much according to plan. Our worst case was that it might take 6 hours (with four of us and a backhoe). In fact, the whole thing was done in under 2 hours.

More pictures here.  (slideshow version)

They look so beautiful. Next stop — a roof!