The Week in Review

The last few days have been all about continuing building the first floor walls. We've honed the process down to a routine and they happen pretty quickly. The walls weigh a lot by the time they are ready to go up; thanks to Joe's wall jacks the two of us are able to winch the walls up with only a rhythmic work song and some even cranking. Because the plywood runs past the end of the framing to cover the end of the previous wall, we need to build each successive wall out about a foot laterally from its final placement. This means we have to move the wall along the edge of the floor deck to get it in place.

To achieve this we are using some 1" wooden dowels that we place periodically under the wall with the assistance of a hefty crow bar. The elevated wall gets the pressure off the rubber sill gasket and allows us to roll the wall into place.

Going at it

Today Joe and I started actual work on the house, specifically the root cellar walls which complete the structure of the basement. After months of rainy cool weather we are finally being graced with muggy humid weather in the upper 80's. Its a beast, but it feels great, like summer. We took a much needed swim in the Mad River at lunch and then again when we were done in the early evening.

Any new project takes a little while to get into a groove, and given that, we were able to get set up and rolling pretty well. By the end of the day we had both of the root cellar walls in place. Tomorrow we'll tidy up the walls and build the roof over the root cellar, which will allow for us to move onto the sill and work on the first floor deck. Completing the root cellar will also prepare us for the earthwork and grading which will happen next week.