Ruple Blogography

porch and paint

2008-08-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

I love days like today. A lot of progress was made on the studio, and not just any progress, but progress that you can actually see. We painted the three sides that have siding on them, and I continued working on the front porch. You can really get a feel for what the finished building is going to look like when paint starts going on the walls.

I built the porch 8' out from the front edge of the building, and set it so that the top of the decking would end up pretty much flush with the threshold of the door (wheelchair accessible). It really wasn't too tough, other than the fact that somehow I got off on the spacing of the floor joists on the front side of the porch, and they ended up all out of whack with each other. It took a little head scratchin', but I finally figured out what I had done and fixed it.

The color we landed on, after trying three different samples is LaFonda Wild West Green. I know, what a name! But we were extremely pleased once we got the three sides painted, and we just love the color. I was amazed at how quickly the painting went. I think we started at about 2:00 this afternoon, and finished up right at dark. One more day, and we'll have all the painting done. We decided to brush the paint on instead of spraying it and I think that saved us a ton of time since we didn't have to mask off all the trim, windows, doors, and metal roofing.

Last thing, the sheetrock came in this afternoon, so we should also get some work done on the interior of the studio this week.

Here are the completed windows and back door. I can actually lock all my tools inside the building now instead of toting them all inside the house every night.

LaFonda Wild West Green in all her splendor.

Cool detail shot of the front window and door trim.

Here's the view from the highway.

No extra charge for this little nugget of joy!

So close, but yet so far...

2008-08-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Man, it seems that the studio building is just on the cusp of being completed, but the remaining steps are all tedious and time consuming. It really matters how everything looks now, since it is all finish work that will show in the final product, and that means I have to spend a lot more time making it just right.

Since the last post, a real milestone has been reached. The studio is "in the dry"! Actually, it probably is not 'officially' in the dry since the siding has not been completed on the back wall, but for my purposes, no more rain is coming into the interior of the building.

Just after the last post, Clay Heslep came over and roughed in the electricity. Clay and I went to high school together (actually we are kinfolk somewhere down the line), and April and Clay went to the same college for a while. He is just a great guy and we actually had to twist his arm to get him to let us at least do some family pictures for him as payment for his time and expertise. He was just going to do it all for free...and I have hardly seen him since high school! Now, that's a good friend to have.

That's Clay hard at work.

Pulling wire through the studs (I did some of the mindless work)

The progress that is the most visible and probably the most gratifying since our last update has to be the siding being completed on three sides of the building. It really gives the studio a bonafide look, just like a cottage style house. I decided to use fiber cement siding (also called Hardie Board), in 7" lap siding widths. This Hardie Board is pretty amazing stuff. It really is not a terribly new product, but it has gained a ton of popularity in the last decade or so. It is made up of fiberglass reinforced cement...so, no rotting, no swelling, no burning, no bug damage. Plus, the stuff holds paint better than pretty much any other material out there. I guess the only downside is that it is pretty heavy since it comes in 12' long pieces. I'm here to tell you, though, it's not near as heavy in these 12'x8" boards as it is in 4'x8' sheets like we used on Buster's studio. Now there was a backbreaking bunch of lifting!

So the process of hanging the siding went as such:
First, I trimmed out all the windows and the corners of the building. Most people would recommend using cedar 1x6's, or you can actually buy trim made from fiber cement material, and in a pinch, you could use 1x6's made from pine and paint all sides of the trim before installing it to keep it from rotting. But, since cedar and Hardie Board are ridiculously expensive, and pine 1x6's aren't just a whole lot better, I decided to go with regular ol' pine 2x6's. It's kind of funny that 2x6's are half as expensive as 1x6's but it's true. I just picked out the straightest 2x6's I could find and used them to trim all the windows. It actually turned out pretty cool looking since it sticks out further from the face of the siding, giving the windows a real substantial look. With a little putty to fill the knots and nail holes, they will look pretty nice once they are painted. (For now they are only primed).

You can see my 2x6 cheapo trim here and how the siding was cut and nailed around.

After the trim was completed, a row of z-flashing was nailed at the bottom of the walls. This little piece of bent aluminum served two purposes. One, to keep any water from splashing from the ground back up behind the siding, and two, to provide a "kick-out" for the first row of siding. You see, all the other rows of siding will overlap the one below it, making it lay with the bottom further from the wall than the top. The first row, however, has no other row to sit on top of, so we needed something that would make the angle of the lowest row look the same as the rest of the rows.
Next, chalklines were popped that represented level lines for the courses of siding to line up on, and vertical chalklines were popped to show the locations of the studs behind the tarpaper and plywood. This really made the nailing process a ton faster.
Then, the siding could actually be hung. Sometimes April could help hold one end while I nailed the other, but when she was unavailable, I made a loop out of the plastic straps that held all the siding together on the truck, and nailed it to the wall so that one end of the board could hang in the loop and I could hold the other end and nail it home. It was an ingenious system that I must admit I stole off the internet. (www.finehomebuilding.com is frikkin' awesome). James Hardie told me to leave a 1/8" gap between the ends of the boards where they butted against each other and the trim and fill the gap with caulk to allow for expansion and contraction, and to make the system watertight. I used a putty knife to scrape the extra caulk out of the joints which mimicked the wood grain and made the joints really blend in. Another great thing about this siding is that even though it is made out of concrete, it is pretty easy to cut. All you have to do is score it on both sides with a utility knife run down the side of a speed square, and break it. It breaks right on the line every time. The only tough thing was notching out around windows, but even that really wasn't all that bad.

Here is the east wall half completed.

Here you can see the finished side.

Now that is some real progress!

I just worked from bottom to top until the walls were all sided. Took a while, but really not too difficult.
Now, we have all the electricity roughed in, the a/c and heat is in, most of the insulation is complete, all the doors and windows are in, the front porch has been started, and someone has turned on the light at the end of the tunnel.

What a dork!

Just right

Starting to Look Like a Studio

2008-08-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lag in the updates...we have been busy beyond belief the past couple of weeks. April and I have been shooting two photo sittings per day, and I've been working on the studio while April works on touching up photos and watching Jack during the day. Here is our typical day:

8:00 - Wake up when Jack wakes up.
8:30 - Eat breakfast and feed Jack his cereal
9:30 - Clean up the house and get ready for the photo shoots
10:00 - Our first photo shoot has been at 10:00 am every day for the past month
11:00 - After finishing the shoot, we get Jack down for his nap and start making lunch
12:00 - Lunch
12:30 - I go outside to work on the studio while April starts working on touch ups, sending off orders, laundry, whatever.
6:30 - After a full afternoon of working on the studio, I typically come in, clean up, and get ready for our second photo shoot
7:00 - Our second shoot starts and typically runs for about an hour and a half
8:30 - I put Jack to bed and April starts making dinner
9:30 - We sit down (finally) for dinner
10:00 - Since Jack is asleep, April can finally make real progress on the computer work which usually takes a couple of hours
12:00 - get ready for bed and turn in

So, we have basically been putting in around 14 hours each day...not much time left over for blogging, but alas, tonight there was no photo shoot! So, I'll get you caught up on the construction progress.

After all the trusses went up, they needed to be tied to the rest of the building. For this, hurricane ties were used, and Spencer and Mason put all these in. I worked out pretty well too, since Spencer is right handed, and Mason is left handed, together they could drive almost all the nails. Pappy or Uncle Brent had to help with a few.

Next came the plywood decking. After putting on the lowest row, Pappy suggested that I nail on some 'safety boards' at the bottom of the roof. Presumably, they would hang me up if I happened to slip, and keep me from hitting the dirt. I don't think I could have wrestled the plywood sheets onto the roof without using them for a solid foothold.

Pappy and Spencer would hand the plywood up, and I would pull them into place. This was one butt-kicking job! Unfortunately, it was my butt that was getting kicked!

As April's dad would say "the nail gun is the greatest invention since the weedeater". I have a hard time disagreeing.

The plywood decking really adds a lot of rigidity to the building. I start feeling better about the structure being able to withstand wind after the roof decking is on.

Spencer got to be on the roof right at the end of the day but he apparently had to keep his center of gravity low.

OK, this doesn't have much to do with the building progress, but it sure is cute.

After all the decking was put on, April and I put tarpaper on the roof just before leaving for Camp Caudle for a week. I just hoped the wind wouldn't get up and blow all the tarpaper off. It only blew loose a couple of pieces, no big deal.
After we got back home, I ordered the metal roofing from Metal Mart. The guy just cut the metal pieces to the exact length I needed them (17 feet), and they went up in only a day and a half. April would help me lean the long pieces of roofing up against the building, and I could then grab them and walk backward up the roof, lat them in place, and screw them down. Only tough part was the fact that it was about 160 degrees on top of that big frying pan.

The next step was to cover the exterior walls with tarpaper in preparation for the siding. This keeps any water that gets past the siding from infiltrating the wall cavity. All the tarpaper took about two days.

Check out my new "rolling scaffolding". Worked perfectly!

After all the tarpaper was up, a special adhesive flashing was used to seal all the window openings. The key to keeping water out of the building is to make sure that all the materials have a "shingle" effect, where the upper layer always overlaps the layer below. This is true from the foundation up to the roof cap

I went to Lowe's to look for windows. Luckily, I found vinyl windows made by Pella (a really good brand of window) on sale. The big 3'x6' windows were marked down a hundred bucks each. That saved me $800. I had planned on using single hung windows in the sun room, but with the sale, it was actually cheaper to go with double hung.

The process of installing the windows was actually much easier than I thought it would be. First, the sill was checked to make sure it was level and wood shims were laid down to make sure it was.

Next, the window units were tilted into the hole and nailed into the surrounding framing after they were checked for plumb and level. I started out using regular nails and driving them old-fashioned style with a hammer. Later, I decided that it would be much easier to use the nail gun. I had read that nail guns could crack the vinyl flange on the windows in cold weather, but I think we were safe from that since it wan near 100 today.

After the window units are nailed in, you have to check to make sure they open and close smoothly. This is also a great opportunity to poke your head out like a dork and have your picture taken by your wife.

This is where we stand as of this evening. My electrician is coming in the morning, the plumbers finished up their 'rough in' yesterday, and the air conditioning guy is coming on Monday. We are going to make some great progress this next week.

2008-07-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Every time I let myself get a little behind on my blogging of the studio construction progress, I'm reminded of the old canned chili commercials: "How long has it been since you've had a big steaming bowl of Wolf Brand Chili?....Well, that's been too long." And so it has been too long indeed since my last post. There has been considerable progress on the building since the last update, though. We have gone from bare stud walls to actual plywood walls with the windows and doors cut out. And, today, Amy, Keith, and the boys, along with Mom and Dad were over here helping and we got all the trusses up.

Buster and Candy were here to help with putting the plywood up on the stud walls, and to stand up the interior walls. At the beginning of the planning process, April and I were slightly worried that our proofing room and bathroom would not be big enough. On the floor plan, they just looked small. At one point, I actually mocked up the proofing room in our den/studio with the white board panels that we lay down to shoot with the white backdrop. The space just seemed tiny. But, now that the walls are actually up, and especially with the 9' ceilings, the rooms look plenty big.

The decision to go with 9' ceilings was made pretty late in the game, but I'm glad we went with it now. Now, our ceiling in the studio space will be vaulted, but our backdrops will be mounted on the low sides of the vault. I just figured the extra foot of height would be appreciated later. It is quite a bit more work, since you can't reach a 9' ceiling unless you climb a ladder, but it sure makes the space seem bigger.

Yesterday and today, all of my family came over and helped put the trusses up. The trusses were scheduled to arrive yesterday, and the truss delivery guy called my phone at 6:30 a.m. to let me know that he was on his way! I got up, put some clothes on, and he was in the driveway at 6:40. So, April and I just stayed up and got a lot of work done. We had four photo shoots, I got the yard mowed, and my cousin Evan showed up and we put the trusses up onto the top of the walls upside-down. That evening is when my whole family showed up and we flipped the trusses over and nailed them in place to make the roof. We finished up this evening at around 6:00, and headed over to Mom and Dad's to have a 4th of July dinner.

And so it stands. We can now see the outline of the building standing against the sky. We can now tell just how big it's going to look from the road, and I have to admit, it looks pretty good. I know there is a ton of work yet to do, but I feel that a lot of progress has been made in the last few days. The goal now is to get the roof finished and the walls totally detailed out before camp starts the week after next. We shall see....

First, Evan and I hung the trusses upside-down on the tops of the walls.

After that, the trusses could then be flipped over, slid into place, and nailed down. Each truss is braced to the previous truss, and the whole lot is braced to the ground.

Here is Keith, a.k.a. 'Cliffhanger'

Keith was getting on to me for 'posing', I'm just trying to keep my wife happy!

Here is the whole crew manhandling another truss.

These end trusses are always the hardest. They are heavier than all the other trusses, and they have to be perfectly plumb since all the other trusses will be connected to them.

These things can get away from you if you're not careful.

Amy had the most important job of all...watching Jack!

Can't you just see the potential? It's going to be great.

2008-06-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a week since the last post. The lag in coverage has most assuredly not been due to a lack in progress on the studio. Truth be told, we've been working so much on the studio that most nights, I haven't come inside until after 8:00; after eating dinner, taking a shower, etc., I've been too worn out to update the blog. But, tonight that will not be the case. We knocked off a little early this evening since we had a proofing at 7:00, and dinner along with Jack's bedtime pretty much filled up our schedule until 9:00 or so. There are a lot of pictures in this post to get you caught up with all that we've done the last few days, so enjoy.

After the sill plate went down as shown in the last post, I started framing up the floor. I decided to go with 2x8's throughout the floor in an attempt to simplify the construction process. In the early stages of planning, I had 2x10 beams with 2x8 floor joists, but later it seemed to make since to have double 2x8 beams with single 2x8 joists. The floor framing overhangs the foundation walls by 4" on all sides to accomodate 4" of rock work that will run along the bottom of the studio, coming out flush with the exterior walls of the completed building.

After spending so much time on the foundation, making sure it was perfectly square and level, it was incredible to pull stringlines from the corners of the floor and find that they were absolutely perfect! I'm here to tell you, that will make the rest of the construction process much easier.

A few months ago, the highway department called us and told us that we had to remove our sign from the mailbox. Apparently, after two years of having it hanging on the mailbox, they decided to enforce some rule that states that you can't have a business sign on your mailbox. Now, you can have a sign with your name and address, just not your business...makes no sense. So, April has been itching to get some new signs up. Since our other sign has been down, we've actually had people ask us if we were still in business. April designed our new signage, and we called a sign shop in Conway and had them made. I built some frames and we put them in the ground yesterday.

Here I am working on the new sign frames.

This is my dad (pappy) painting one of the sign frames.

The new Ruple Photography signs in all their splendor.

Lee came down on Monday and he and dad and Spencer and Seth all helped make a ton of progress. First, we put down the floor decking, which is 3/4" tongue and groove plywood. This was quite a job, but having all the hands really made it go by quickly. Seth's favorite part was getting into the crawlspace and pretending to be a troll.

There is the troll boy now.

Spencer and Seth (mostly Spencer) helped by screwing down the decking. It was quite a job. An unfinished job, I might add.

Lee and I laying down the decking.

Doesn't a nice level subfloor just warm your heart? I thought so.

After completing the subfloor, the next step was laying out the top and bottom plates for the wall and marking where each stud, window, and door were going to be located. After consulting the plans, Lee laid out the first wall. I decided on 9' walls instead of the typical 8' walls, since we often take portraits of tall guys, and we don't want the ceiling to be showing up in the pictures. You wouldn't think one extra foot of height would make that much difference in the way the walls look, but these boogers looked huge once we started standing them up. It sure will be nice to have that extra height once the studio is done.

As Lee measures out the wall plates, I check his work...he was pretty accurate.

Up goes the first wall. Now that's progress!

Look at that hunk. You might want to keep one of those 2x4's to beat the girls away.

My cousin Mason showed up at the worksite just in time for lunch. He left right after dinner...go figure.

Framing is without a doubt my favorite stage of construction. The foundation work is so laborious and it always looks the same at the end of the day as it did at the beginning. But with framing, you can really see a change in the building as the hours go by. Plus, your rooms start to take shape. You can stand out in the yard and really start visualizing what this new structure is going to look like when finished. It really is exciting. And gratifying.

Within the course of a day, all four walls were standing. Another day, and all the interior walls were done. I love this stuff.

The sun sets on another good day of progress.

First Framing: the floor

2008-06-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

Last week, April and I, along with Lee and Andrea, directed a session of church camp at Camp Caudle. The week is called 'Servant Week'. Basically, a few kids come up to clean the cabins, paint, weed-eat, and just get camp ready for a full summer. This year, we decided to take it a step further and actually plan some projects that the kids could build. We rebuilt a waterfall/baptistry, built an observation deck next to the waterfall, repaired the dock at the swimming hole, built some steps down to the river, organized the shed, installed the water trampoline, hung up curtains in all the cabins, and got everything cleaned and ready for the summer. The kids had a blast, as did I. It was a lot of hard work, but when you look back and see all the progress that was made, it makes it all worth while.

After we got back, work on the studio resumed. The lumber was delivered a couple of Fridays ago as expected, and the first wood to be used was for the sill plate. First, I laid down a layer of plastic over the outside of the foundation wall to keep moisture from migrating in through the blocks during the wet season. This may be unnecessary as the inside elevation of the crawlspace is basically the same as the outside grade, but I figured it was a small price to pay for a little extra insurance.

Next, a band of aluminum flashing was run along the top of the foundation wall which should help keep termites from being able to ever reach the wood in the building. This was a step that I noticed was included in a lot of foundation details on the internet. A lot of construction details can be found at finehomebuilding.com. I got a month's subscription to their archived articles, and downloaded every one that I thought might be relevant at some point in this construction process. They have really turned out to be helpful.

After the termite shield was down, treated 2x8's were drilled to fit over the sill bolts that were mortared into the foundation wall, and then they were torqued down with nuts and washers. I really enjoyed getting to this step, because the foundation now took on a nice completed look. Perfectly level, clean, and ready to be built upon.

Here is the foundation after the placement of the sill plate.

Detail shot of how the sill plate was connected to the foundation wall (notice the plastic lining over the blocks)

Last night, I stayed up until about midnight putting together the double-2x8 beams, and nailing the joist hangers in place along their length. Today, Dad came over and we placed the beams across the foundation wall and the piers in the middle of the crawlspace. Next, all the floor joists were cut to length (for some reason, they are all about 1/2" too long) and placed in the joist hangers. Everything fit together like a puzzle. Now, there is a nice level floor frame, with plastic sheeting covering the ground in the crawlspace. Today was the first day when real fast progress was made. And that is how it goes...the foundation work is slooooow, the framing is fast, and the detail work at the end is sloooow. Luckily, right now I'm in the fast part.

Phone Calls - no REAL progress

2008-05-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today, I ordered the lumber from National Home Centers. Tomorrow, a big truck, hopefully with a big forklift will pull in my driveway and deliver all the wood needed to build the floor and walls of the studio. National Home Center beat the price from Ridout by $300, and that sealed the deal. Also, NHC called me back after I faxed in the materials list within 10 minutes. Ridout took several hours to get back with me.

I also called the termite guy to come out and treat the new building before any wood goes in. That should be much more affordable and effective than having to treat the building after the fact as we had to do with our house a couple months ago. We noticed termites in our den, eating through our backdrops, and before we knew it, we were finding them up in the walls, behind the paneling. $700 later, we were treated for termites...now we have a ton of dead termites laying in the frame of our sliding glass door in the den. I'm just happy they're dead.

First Post: Foundation in the Ground

2008-05-25T20:50:00.001-07:00

This is the master plan as submitted to the Vilonia Planning Commission.

Having already tried to think back upon the process of building the new Ruple Photography Studio, there are already decisions, steps, and challenges that have now been forgotten. I felt the need to start cataloging the process so that, upon completion, we could look back and see a timeline of the construction process from design and planning, to groundbreaking, to putting up the finishing touches.

The past three years, we have operated our photography business out of our home here in Vilonia, Arkansas. We have a den that is seldom used where we set up our handed down equipment from April's father, Buster. He and April's mom, Candy, are pro-fessional photographers down in Texas (it's like this whole other country). He has helped us immensely with providing us with his older equipment, and sometimes his new equipment if we can sneak it away from his house while we are visiting. So, I painted the walls and ceiling of our den, put up the backdrops, and we were in business. Our first year, we provided portrait services for about four seniors. Our next year, we did approximately 15 seniors, and this past year, around 35 seniors came through our doors to have their senior portraits taken. Now, we are located directly across from the high school here in Vilonia, and seniors are a big chunk of our work, but we have been getting busier and busier with families, children, and especially weddings.

I say all that to say this...we are ready to move the business out of our home! It is pretty tiring to have to clean the whole house up every time someone comes over for a session, or a proofing. And, now that Jack is here, our changing room has been converted into the baby room. Furthermore, we are so limited by the small size or our den studio, we actually have to turn away some business that we know we can't handle.

I believe the planning process for the new studio began in November or so, just after Jack was born. Since we knew we would be inside for a couple months, and business is typically slowest during the winter months, it made since to try to get the studio built before the following summer season. Well, after doing some reasearch on the process of getting a business structure built, it became clear that there was going to be much more to it than simply planning and building. First, there was a planning committee that needed to approve the site plan...well the planning committee only meets on the final Thursday of each month. Guess what, the final Thursday of December was between Christmas and New Year's and we were going to be in Texas with the inlaws. So, the approval would have to wait until the end of January. Also, we had to apply for a business loan and wait for its approval. All told, I didn't get started on the actual building process until well into March.

Before.....

Using the new Kubota tractor.

Digging the footer trench.

Crazy thing is, this spring was one of the wettest in Arkansas ever. After I dug the trench for the footer, every time it rained, the trench turned intead into a moat. After the water dried, there was a new layer of sticky mud in the bottom of the thench, not the best base for holding up a building. Finally, I decided to dump a bunch of gravel in the trench and compact it down. This helped with drainage and with the mud problem. Also, I dug a trench from the bottom of the footer out across the yard until it daylighted downhill. Now the water could actually escape the hole. After an inspection of the footer trench and the steel reinforcement by our city inspector (who never got out of his truck), we were finally ready for the concrete. Unfortunately, more rain fell over the course of the next week, and it was April 30th before the councrete could be poured.

Finally pouring the concrete...9 cubic yards of it.

After the concrete set up, it was time to lay the outer foundation wall. I decided to go with concrete block with pier and beams across the middle. This seemed easier and slightly cheaper than going with a slab foundation. The final deal breaker was the fact that a crawlspace building would be easier to move in the case that became necessary. Now, I've never done concrete block before, but I did some research, and I know how to keep things straight and plumb, so the walls went up in a couple of days.

Which leads me to the main point that I'd like to illustrate through the building of this studio. There are a lot of phases of construction that I have little to no experience in. I think that people in general are intimidated by the process of going from nothing to an entire building. But, I have learned that with some good research, on the internet, in magazines, books, and asking questions, you can figure just about anything out. The same rules of physics apply to everything you are doing...nothing is magic. If you can afford to take your time, and be willing to think things through, a ton of money can be saved. I will definitely post later on the final budget of the building (another learning experience).

Me and Jack on the tractor.

That pretty much brings me up to speed. I know this post is terrible long, but several months of work had to be caught up on. From now on, hopefully I will be able to log my progress every couple of days. As it stands, the foundation wall is complete, the floor piers are set, and after the long weekend lumber will be ordered to start the framing of the floor and walls.