Reclaimed Timbers

I picked the absolute worst day to go and get reclaimed timbers for our home. We bought them from a place called Trestlewood in Blackfoot, ID. I planned to head up last week before we had any snow at all, but their salesman in SLC told me I had to have an appointment. So, i scheduled one as soon as I could get one, which was the Monday before Thanksgiving. He insisted I get an appointment so that they could find the timbers in sizes I needed, then all i would have to do is choose the ones I wanted from what they had. Monday morning I headed out and the weather was horrible. I called their office to let them know I was running a bit late due to heavy snows and they said, 'no problem, that will give us more time to get ready for you.' I finally showed up 45 minutes late in Blackfoot only to find they had no idea I was coming. Apparently there was a communication problem between their Blackfoot and SLC office. I ended up spending 5 hours at their place sifting through stacks of timbers buried in snow with Pedro and another guy that barely spoke English. They were super freindly and helpful, but it was hard for them to understand what type of post I was looking for. Finally I found Bob in his office who helped me locate what we were after. Once I spoke with him we had everything located and loaded within an hour.

Finally I thought I was home free. Neil was waiting on these timbers for a couple of load bearing walls he was building that day, and I was late. I left Blackfoot at around 2 and should have been in Wyoming in 2 hrs. Due to complete whiteout conditions it took me another 5 1/2 hours to get there. Once I arrived I found I had gotten a flat somewhere along the way. I had a double axle trailer, and since i was driving around 20 MPH and couldn't even see the trailer behind me because the blizzard was so thick, i never noticed. $125 later I had a new tire, but we still had to unload the timbers. It took another 3 1/2 hours to get my truck up the hill and into our place and unload them. The snow was so deep i got stuck twice trying to get in. This pic below was the clearest conditions I had all day.


All in all it was an adventurous day, but the timbers should look pretty cool in the house when it's complete. They are old barn or warehouse timbers that are partially painted with old brackets, bolt holes and whatnot on them. They don't look super awesome in these pics since they are wet and partially covered in snow and dirty road spray.

Started Framing

Getting to the point we could start framing took much longer than we thought as we had a few hurdles along the way. Our framer Neil finished up another job later than he planned and our foundation guy took longer than he planned so we got a late start and unfortunately for us, winter came extra early this year, and with a vengance. I think we have over 24" of snow already. We just blew about 18" off of the main floor with the snowblower over Thanksgiving weekend, and got stuck 3 times trying to get in to do so. I need to get my tractor back up there so we can use it to clean up the snow. I hoped to get it framed up and a roof on at least before we got too much snow. The last few years we haven't gotten hit hard with snow until Dec. So far though, Neil and his guys have done an excellent job. It's nice to have a framer that wants it to turn out how it should instead of just wanting to get off the job asap.

This is our new basement. Upstairs will have similar window layout directly above with a large deck.

Foundation In

We recently had our foundation poured with much beefier footings that we're used to. The snow loads up here are much more than Northern Utah, so we had to accomodate.

While the hole was open, my dad and I installed some foundation drains to help get any moisture away from the foundation walls and out to the back of the home. I put in verticals at every corner I thought I might have a downspout. This drain turned out to be helpful since the excavator cut the water main without me knowing so when i turned the water on for a few minutes it filled the hole, the drain helped get it out.