Lumber Jack Festival

We're about two months away from our move-in goal, and we're feeling the time crunch to get things done quickly. With this in mind, we hatched a scheme to trick our friends into coming out to work on the new house for a day. Thus, the Lumber Jack Festival was born. Feats of strength included setting the massive porch posts, laying the wood floor, and cutting timber to clear space for the septic field. We were lucky enough to have a great crew of turn out -- eight buddies plus Sean, Mickey, and carpenters Roger, and Daniel.

A quick rewind: last weekend Sean and Mickey were able to get the stained cedar up on the back porch ceiling while Roger and Dan worked on the front porch.

Here are Roger, Mickey, and Sean at work on the ceiling of the front porch last Sunday afternoon. The weather has been holding out nicely, and with temperatures in the upper 60s the guys were happy to stay in short sleeves. Notice that Pedro and his crew nearly finished the stone bases for the posts last Saturday, too.

A view of the finished stained cedar ceiling on the back porch.
Sean gets credit for thinking up this creative way to use some of the large timbers that had to come down to build the house. He took them to Sawmill John in Whitmore Lake and had them turned into eight massive porch posts. Tom Grant helped haul them back to 40 Oaks in his trailer one rainy afternoon, and this is what they looked like before Sean stained them.
Here is the result of the first Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength. All eight stained posts were hoisted into place Saturday morning.
Mickey, Roger, and Daniel secure the last porch post on the back of the house.
The second Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was laying the wood floor throughout much of the first floor. Luckily some of our crafty buddies had experience with this, and we were glad to put Don and Andy to work.

Peter insisted on checking the quality of the new wood boards. Mickey acted as his trusted adviser.
The third Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was clearing lumber. Bret had a new chain that was begging to eat some wood, so he led the crew cutting and hauling lumber.

Here is Bret working his chainsaw while Joe and Jay haul Trex to the back of the house.
Jay, Brian, and Andy discuss the finer points of Lumber Jack etiquette.
A feast of National Coney dogs, chili, corn bread, chips, and brownies was enjoyed by all the Lumber Jack Festival participants. A big thank you goes to Aimee and Missy for helping to feed the hungry guys.
Finally, here is the trusty crew of Lumber Jacks. We're lucky to have such a talented, helpful bunch of guys to pitch in and help us out. Left to right are Daniel, Andy, Roger, Jay, Brian, Sean, Bret, Mickey, Don, Anthony, and Joe. Missing is Andy T. who scooted out just before lunch.