Roof Done, Barn Almost Done Siding

Here is the current state of the barn. The roof is done. The cupola is done. The weather vane is on. The siding is almost done.
The end wall showing the new peak window. This window is interesting because it is fake. It lets no light in. It has been blacked out by painting its backside as otherwise, you would just see the truss members in it. It will be walled over on the inside. We gave up the ability to have a real window here as a compromise due to incorrectly designed trusses. The only siding that isn't done is just above the door.
Here is the car port. The roof is done. And, there is a whole lot of trash and crap under there. The support posts finally have a foundation block to sit un. They hung in mid air for a long time.
The peak window on this side is real.
The current state of the office is shown here. The exterior door and windows are in. So are the skylights. Siding starts this week. You can see the barn cupola towering over the office in the background.The backside of the office showing the septic pump tank.

Roofing and Siding Progressing

Roofing and Siding is moving along in Earnest now. Two more days and the roof will be done. The siding will be done by next weekend. That means it will be dry inside and I can finish the wiring.

Also notice that the cupola has been framed. Also framed is the mini-roof over the barn's side man-door. But this is out of the picture on the right side.

The cupola was not initially planned. I had wanted one, but was trying to control costs. However, I made a deal with the general contractor that I am hoping I won't regret. In exchange for pre-paying for some of the services to help with his cash flow, he got us the cupola.

It turned out the cupola was more expensive that he had planned as it was done too late, which caused the framers to have to work in difficult positions and without the correct tools. You should have heard them swearing about it up there. I feel for them as I am not comfortable working at height either.

We also have purchased a weather vane for the top. The top of the weather vane should approach 40' off the ground. Come on lightning!
Here you see the roofers, in harnesses working, on the steep 45 degree (12/12) pitch of the roof, up to 30' off the ground.

I admit to having thought in the past that it would be fun to work in construction. But I no longer feel so after seeing what these guys have to do.
I haven't gotten a shot of the office in some time. It hasn't looked like it changed much. But now the roof is done on it and the windows and outside door are installed. I would have taken a picture now, but it was raining hard and didn't want to get my camera wet. I took these from our front porch. Next time I will as we are expecting a week of dry weather.

...Mollasses in January

Siding is started. It is a little premature as we are still waiting on the roofers to start. It has been two weeks since I was promised they would start right away by the general contractor. Of course wiring is being held up by the lack of roof as well. I could have used this 3-4 day weekend or last week's for Christmas to get most of the wiring done.

The siding design is going to be very nice. It is a 12" board with 3" batten. We are trying to do as few seems as possible by using 16' wood and breaking it up with window and door trim. Some do a "belly band" which is a horizontal piece that wraps the structure. This always looks a little hokey. So we are doing a 45 degree splice with the angle so that water runs away from the building instead of into it.

There is a problem with the material which is mildewing badly since it has been sitting around outside for many months. If it was Cedar, it would have been better. But it is Fir for lower cost. It would have been fine if we could have gotten it up and painted soon. I am not sure what it will take to deal with now. Probably some bleach and some sort of mildew suppressor

The tar paper is being doubled up to improve moisture resistance. Seeing the building in black looks different. This is closer to it's final appearance of barn red with white trim.
We got quite a bit of snow over Christmas. It was the most I have ever seen around here. Old-timers say it has been worse, some time ago. Here is a shot from about the worst of it.