hi there, we got the kitchen and dining room joists done up top, they were 12 foot lengths, and very easy to handle. The joists above the living room are a 16 foot span, and that's an awfully large board. We carry them over from the pile, push them up in the open door of the dining room, and then slide them across the floor. Then we set one end of the board on the top of one wall, and hoist the other up onto the ladder at the other wall, and then set them into place. Surprisingly, it's very easy to toenail the joists into place, and the whole process went really smoothly, we got two thirds of the house done yesterday, no joist hangers! Shawn is re-joisting over that fact alone, as he is decidedly not a fan of hammering dozens of joist hangers in (each takes 12 nails and they all seem to have to be hammered in from a bizarre position where you tilt your body like a broken windmill and then crank your arms at a diagonal into the air and then hammer from that inconvenient position with your neck also tweaked in a funny way). We hope to finish up the joists today, there are only four more for the living room and then framing up the stairwell area (not building the stairs yet, Roy is going to share some of his expertise with us when it comes to stairs). The mudroom has to have separate joists laid, only 8 inch joists, as it's only for the one floor and there isn't a second floor to it. There will be a few joist hangers there, but they are a smaller size. That's about all. We hope to finish the joists and get the rim joists up as well, and then it will be time to start stairs and maybe hoist a few plywood sheets up the other way around. Which is by ladder. :-)