May 27, 2004: Now that the lower floor walls are all complete (see first picture) we are ready for the BEAM. This monster is 22-1/4" tall, 5-1/4" wide and 31feet long!  Hired a crane for a mere $200 to lift it into place. WELL worth the price. Only took about 25 minutes, but had we tried some other creative way of lifting it, we'd be doing it still today!

Beam, Building, Crane, Placement!

Here's me trying to untie the beam from the crane's straps.

After the beam's in place, then it's strapped in with metal.

Strapped in and nailed up, the beam now gets a 2x4 on it to align the upcoming floor joists.

Here you can see the first 8 or 10 floor joists going on in preparation for the upper floor.

Next up, a stairway is needed in order to get us to the upper floor so that we can put the subfloor plywood on. The stairway will prove to be an interesting challenge….