The Life for Me

The crane arrived around 9:00 am and the tub, plywood sheeting, main girder, and roof trusses were lifted into place. The afternoon seemed to go somewhat slowly, but when I compare the pictures from yesterday to the ones taken today it looks as though we were quite productive after all.

Not really a festival, but still a nice picture.

The framing of the second floor went quite smoothly. The very pleasant weather and shorter walls were a help. Here are four shots starting with the front (south) side, then east, then north (the back), and finished up with the west.

We finished up the end of the second week by setting the floor joists for the second floor sleeping area. Things has progressed very nicely despite several days of strong wind. I got turned into a Tyvek burrito after one especially strong breeze. Tim and his crew are very impressive. They are all about precision. Everything is checked and doubled-checked. They are a great crew to work with. The pictures attached show the west wall of the bathroom going up. The wall gets laid out on the floor, checked for square, sheeting is applied, Tyvek is tacked on, and then we lift it into place and secure it to the floor and adjoining walls.

The truck with the materials came and my jaw just about hit the dirt when I saw the massive LVLs that were dropped off. Here are a couple shots of the SMALL one. I'll save the bigger one for later in the show. Things are obviously out of order here. We aren't deconstructivists after all -- are we?

It seems that the busier I am the fewer pictures I take. Here is a quick recap of the last week's happenings. Preparations for the concrete slab happened on Tuesday. There was one day delay because of a late materials delivery and the county required that there be an inspection to make sure that the slab was insulated properly before any concrete was poured. The pour went off very well. We only had a wheel barrow full of concrete left. (Just enough to fill one last core in the block.) I picked some ferns that were growing on a shaded north bank near the creek and laid them into the wet floor. Tim and James did a really nice job on the finish work. The colored concrete, leaf imprints, and saw cuts turned out really nice. The week finished with John and me taking a very long and bumpy ride from the house site to the barn on a large trenching machine. It was a bit scary at times, especially when going straight down the steep side of the hill. It was really good to get that part of the