Journal of progress--July 30-August 5 2018

Monday, July 30, 2018

Viisited today by a daughter and all her kids, plus the two granddaughters who came out last week. and our employee showed up on time, so I had LOTS of help. With lots of instruction, thekids were able to sort and de-nail most of the junk pile. The mom mostly supervised kids. I know she wanted to do some actual construction, and she did do a little bit, but her biggest contribution was keeping kids out of my hair, so I could work. Only one injury--one grandson stepped on a nail. Not a bad one.

Our employee and I managed to get all the remaining corners braced with plywood, in the process using up all the full sheets of plywood I have. But there’s plenty of OSB left for the rest of the walls. We’ll probably finish this week, and can start installing windows, or roofing, or doing exterior closing-in finish work, such as soffits, etc.

Don did not journal every day this week so basically the work continued on sheathing the house (putting the outside wood on the frame).

My house hath four corners.

Had one potentially serious accident. Our employee was outside, shooting nails through the plywood into studs, while I observed from inside, to make sure he hit the studs. He just missed the edge of a stud, but the gun double-fired, as it does sometimes. The second nail hit the same spot, and came all the way through the plywood, and eight feet beyond, striking my cheekbone just below my right eye. Didn’t even draw blood, but if it had hit an inch higher, I would have lost an eye. and if I had not been eight feet from the wall, it WOULD have hit higher. From now on, I will ALWAYS wear eye protection whenever working around a nail gun. ALWAYS. Wow.

One “glitch”. Barbara decided that she really wants a picture window in the dining area, so we had to spend some time re-building the wall. Fortunately, it was before we had sheathed that portion of the wall, so I just had to cut down the cripples and re-install the plate at the bottom of the window. Instead of being at waist height, it’s now at knee height. This is deliberate, to allow Barbara to watch the deer as they visit our apricot tree, without having to get up. Took about an hour to make the adjustment. Of course, the window will no longer fit, so Barbara had to order a custom window from Salt Lake City. It’ll cost about $150.00.

What happened was the night before, out neighbors brought over some watermelon to share and we sat in the house to eat it.   I (Barbara) realized  that, as I looked out the window as then constituted, all I could see unless I went right up to the window was the neighbors roofs.  Frequently we have deer that forage on that side of the house and we really enjoy seeing them.  I wanted to be able to see them when seated at what will be our dining table.

Window opening before being enlarged.

Resizing for the new window.

Cutting the cripples down for the new window

All done.

Our neighbors really spoiled our grandchildren.  They let them use their Little Rascal type go-cart, took them kite flying, and, in the pictures below, brought over their huge sifter used to find lost treasures in the dirt.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Working all week with the help of my hired hand. He’s a very good, hard worker, and a quick learner. We have about one more day’s work to finish the sheathing. The house is definitely looking more house-like than ever.

The series of pictures below show the process of how they put up a heavy piece of board.  They are measuring and marking where the bottom of the board should go.

Don is tacking that cross board into place to support the OSB

They are marking where the studs are so they will know where to drive the nails.

Putting in a few nails to hold the board.

One up high

Our employee (I'll refer to him by his initials G.C.) goes up on top to finish the upper part.

Using a chalk line to mark where the studs are.

Nailing along the chalk lines.

Cutting out for the picture window on the south side of the house.

 Friday night we went to get water and caught this sun-shiney cloud.

A friend gave me this cheery bouquet and some fresh produce from her garden.  We are being treated very well.

Saturday we went into Provo for a granddaughter's baptism.  We had borrowed a low trailer in hopes of getting a fridge.  At a daughter's recommendation, we went to Peter's Appliances and found this lovely Fridgedaire.  Don tied it down with about six tie downs and a 100 foot rope.  Didn't get a picture of this but the fridge was really trussed up.  As he was working on it, another customer came over and helped.  In the process, Don learned he knew something about roofs and he gave Don some valuable council in building our roof as well as gave Don his phone number should he have any questions in the future.

Once we got home, we were looking to see if any of the neighbors might be available to help off-load the fridge.  No one was obviously available.  Just then a truck drove by.  We waved to them just to say hello but they stopped.  It was a couple from Saratoga Springs out for a drive.  The husband was big, and strong and helped get the fridge in.