High and Dry!

Hello again. I haven't written in a while because I've been a nutcase lately. My estimate for framing up to the roof with a hired crew was about half of the actual time it took. The snow started falling nearly every day. Add to that the fact that we were asked to leave our apartment in town.

Despite all of that, things are going well. Mike Potts and his crew were a real blessing to us. There were three or four of them steady working out here in the cold and snow every day except one when it was windy and something like 4º. I really appreciate being able to work with people who aren't too proud to teach and learn as a part of their every day. And the pace was nice. Everyone has their own place on the spectrum between git-R-done and nit-picking, and these fellows fall in a place where I feel at home. We did have some problems, the worst of which was an injury. One of the crew, Josiah, fell off a nine foot wall about the second day we were there and cracked his heel on the concrete slab. It sounds like he'll be on it again before too long but what a bummer. That's mostly all of the bad news, though.

The closing in of the building took a while longer than I thought. This seems to be the usual when you're estimating something you have little experience with. The only other standard stick-framing project I ever was a part of from start to finish was the building of Aya's little seven-foot square bedroom in our cabin. That took about three times as long as I'd guessed, too. But that amounted to only about a week all by myself.

We had to leave our apartment because our kids made too much noise for the downstairs neighbor to stand. The timing of our move out could have been a lot better, but it's great to be away from that whole situation.

We moved out to an apartment just outside of Big Bay next door to the landlords and good friends Sven and Marcia Gonstead. -- If you ever find yourself looking for an excellent guitar or dobro, you ought to talk to Sven. He custom builds the best guitars I've played. Really. Check out www.gonsteadguitars.com for more information.

The apartment is great for us. It's a bit smaller than the last place but we don't need all that much right now. It's hard to say exactly how long we'll stay since our building pace is going to slow down for a while. I can see us moving in the Summer. We're focused on renewing our vision and family harmony over the holidays and getting back to building in January.

Anyway here are some pictures showing how the trusses went up. First we put up a section of wall on the upper level that we could heave the buggers up onto. After they were all upside down on the walls we flipped them and skidded them into place, using wooden blocks to stop them in place on the wall plate, and metal doo-dads that space them out nicely about two-thirds of the way to the ridge.






Putting up the eaves on the gable ends was a little tricky. Anything 20 or more feet off the ground is tricky.














Anyway we got a roof deck and good roofing underlayment on. That should keep us dry until I can get up there next Spring or Summer.

There are more pictures to come whenever I can find the little USB cable.
Merry Christmas to you!