That's Jeff standing on the temporary shelter he and Paul threw together. That's also the height of the first floor. Our first set of joists are piled on the right - all 14-footers.

What a view from the first floor! It's hard to imagine we'll be this high up.

Paul has already set one joist, spanning the rear ledger beam to the log girder.

We actually decided to work from the front to the back. That meant cutting off our lifting pole safety chain since it would be right in the way of the first joist.

To make sure our joists were all laid at the same height - the lowest spot on the surface of the girder - we ran a tight string line about 2" above the girder as a reference line. The perspective is deceiving, but the string line is centered over the girder.

Change of plans. When we laid the first of our 14-foot joists from the ledger across the girder, there was more than 2 feet of overhang. It was obvious we could use 12-footers on this front third of the floor. We then decided to work on the rear third instead. To get the first joist to lay fairly flush against the wall, some knots had to be trimmed.

By mid-afternoon, we had quite a few joists set and nailed.

Another look at the joists.

Jeff toe-nails his end of the joists on each side.

Lifting another joist into place.

Checking the joist with a level to see if there is any bow in it.

We decided not to use a string line on the girder afterall, since, regardless of the height of the top surface of the girder, our fixed reference height is actually the top of the ledger beam. Some spots on the girder had to be routed out to lower the joist, while some spots had to be shimmed up.

Our finished work at the end of Saturday.

Only about 8 more joists to lay in this section.

The threat of rain was real on Sunday. We only got 3 more joists laid before the threat became a reality.

We had taken our shelter down to set more joists, but had to throw it back up quickly to give us and our tools a little protection from the driving downpour.