Framing Second floor - Walls and Roof

Now that the floor sheathing is on the second floor they can begin demolishing the second floor exterior walls.

The beams for the second story headers are long and have a big cross-section - getting them from the ground to the second floor is tricky and takes a lot of guys.  This is one of the heaviest beams - it is a 6x14 header for a large accordian folding door that is 9'-0" wide by 7'-0" high.

...It is also the first beam to go up because it will help to determine the location of one of the roofs ridge beams.

Now the other headers can go up - these are based off of the heights of the existing ceiling and roofs and the crew can track the rest of the walls around the perimeter based on these heights.

Once the crew knows what height to frame the walls to they frame them very quickly...

Next the ridge beams go up for the Family Room Roof.  We had to maintain the existing building height and even dropped it down a few feet because we have a special zoning code ordinance in our area regulating building heights called the "Hillside Ordinance."

Once the ridge beam is up the crew frames in the roof rafters.

The roof rafters for the Family Room are complete.  There is a slightly more complex roof over the new kitchen sitting area and exterior deck.  In this area the ridge bream drops diagonally from the existing roof ridge to the approximate center of the new Family Room.  Because the ridge is at an angle to a constant slope it will be lower at it's end point and each rafter will need to be a different length...that's for next week!