The sauna building is up!

It is amazing what six people can accomplish when they put their minds to something. With only the lifting power of three guys and a little extra help from three others, 10 beams, 3 posts, and 6 rafters where hefted into the air and up 16 feet to be put into place.

Adding the next layers of timbers, (king posts, side beams, ridge beam and the rafters) to the "dead nuts" foundation built last weekend by Todd and my dad, the building is almost completely framed in. There was some doubt by the elders if it was even possible to life 500 lb timbers with only three guys. But determination, teamwork and engineering ingenuity got that baby built over the course of the weekend.

When I wasn't helping to lift timbers, I hauled rocks to make some more retaining walls, landscaped a "fern gully" to help with erosion control, cooked food for the hungry workers, played with the pups, and painted all the beams with preservative.

Beatons Labor Day 2008 - The Build

To see the whole weekend of timber raising madness, double click on the photo above to go to the photo album.