It had taken us exactly one month from Raising Day to this point. We were ready to place the trusses.

The trusses are 24′ long. The building is 20ft wide. Manouvering each one up and around the centeal beam and then up to the proper place was…not fun. We figured out a system of sorts. Of course, as each truss goes into place, the room in which to manouver gets smaller and tests our ingenuity more.

Once they were lifted, I measured the length of overhang, to keep them more or less straight with each other. Then the hurricane straps were banged into place to hold the truss while we got it securely fastened to the frame of the building.

It wasnt an immensely difficult job, but a physical challenge and somewhat time consuming. We have 19 trusses. We got 12 of them completed in the first day. Then we lost a few days to bad weather.

With the trusses all securely fastened, next step was ridge boards – or for people like me who dont speak construction – the horizontal spacer boards between the trusses to close off the space between the top of the wall and the roof. Otherwise, you’d have a full 6″ gap for wind, rain, raccoons, squirrels, and anything else that might want to drop by uninvited.

Because of the vaguaries of milled lumber that has been sitting outside for over a month, each piece had to be measured and cut individually. Annoying. Time consuming. We got the low end finished and the tall side started, but we ran out of day at that point.

All the same, finishing the trusses, and doing a bit over half of the ridge boards is a respectable day’s work. It is looking more like an actual building every day .