Temperatures are rising, but snow still squeaked under my boots as I walked to the house Thursday morning. Inside I found Jeff, Troy and Scott beginning the day’s work with interior framing, which has been the focus on many of these bitter cold days.

All of the interior walls are now framed, upstairs and downstairs. The four-inch cavity between the OSB sheathing (continuous air barrier) and the upstairs ceiling is nearly ready for electrical, plumbing and air-exchange mechanical rough-ins, as are most of the Larsen truss-style walls being built inside every exterior wall to hold insulation.

In this photo I’m standing in the second floor studio/guest room, looking west down the hall to the media/guest room. The framing makes it much easier to imagine and plan for the spaces.

Christi Weber, our architect, will explain why we’re using a Larsen truss-style wall system in the next post. In the meantime, you can see what a finished truss wall looks like today in the featured photo. Here, JR marks where to attach small blocks of wood to the sheathing, to start truss wall installation.

To complete the truss wall, Troy attaches a square-cut scrap of sheathing to the small block and the vertical 2×4 to prevent bowing. The insulation will be so densely packed that without this, the truss frame could move.

Away from the site and in this photo taken a few days ago talking with Jeff, John has been working hard to define exactly where the air exchange tubing, pipes, air returns, vents and exterior wall grill vent will go, and exactly how much tubing and pipe to purchase.

After a long consultation with Zehnder representative Kevin Rapp this past week, we were able to settle on exact placement and complete a materials list for our order. Installation is still a few weeks away, so watch for explanation of the system at that time.