In Germany the milestone of finishing the roof trusses of a home is reason to celebrate. When the last truss is mounted, the head carpenter climbs to the top of the truss and fastens a tree branch that has been decorated with colored ribbons to the top of this truss. In our case we had two head carpenters working together on the ceremonial branch fastening. Ken Stobbe is carrying the branch to the top of the roof while Al Mathews is following him with the tools. While Ken crafted our log package and supported the installation at our site, Al had drawn all CAD drawings for the house, took part in framing the basement walls, helped installing the log package, and will complete all carpentry work on our home.
Team work from start to finish.
Ken and Al mount the branch to the main gable post on the front of the house. They had been working together on all of the design details of the log package for the past 6 months. Builder, suppliers, craftsmen, friends and family gather on the site to celebrate this stage of completion of the home. As for the whole week of the log raising, we were very fortunate with the weather also on the Saturday of the Richtfest.