Day 19

Whew! It has been a looooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg stretch! I've been hearing back from a few of you....wanting to know when the next blog update was going to hit.

HERE IT IS!

Saturday was a good day. We put the attention into framing in the fireplace. The day began with Nate, Bruce, and myself trying to figure out how to get the 150lb. unit hoisted up into place. We thru a rope over the tree in the backyard, tied it around the unit, then Bruce hoisted the unit from the rooftop while Nate and I inched it up the two ladders we were climbing. Quite comical, a bit scary, but we made it! The rest of the day was spent framing the box for the unit and getting it set in it's location. We also managed to get the double pocket door opening framed in place. Great day! DIY was there to catch our moves...and mistakes.

Sunday -- Father's Day. We rested today.....yeah, right! Nate and I worked pretty hard to wrap up a bunch of the back-out framing we still had to accomplish: ceiling joists, the plant shelf, pileasters. Sorry, I know I'm rambling and I don't have many photos to show you the progress. Here's the bottome line: it's been Nate and I this past week while Jeff was camping on Montana, and while it has been extremly difficult to accomplish much with just the two of us, we're nearly there!

Minor hiccup on Sunday. Nate and I both suffered "minor" injuries. We were setting one of the pileasters, Nate and I walked away from it, both thinking the other was holding it -- but we weren't! And it fell. Nate caught it with his melon first, then his sholder. He's a little sore. Then I was cutting some lumber, wearing safety glasses, and a piece of lumber shot under my glasses and into my eye. It HURT! But I kept working for a few minutes until it became too irritable for me to continue. I had to go flush my eye. I found a huge chunk of wood in my eye, but I think I scratched my eye in the process. I took Kathy's advice and laid down for a bit (2 hours). I woke up and it was MUCH better!

Monday -- The electrician showed up today to rough in the outlets and switch boxes. Meanwhile Nate and I finished up (yes, finished up!) the back-out framing upstairs.

Our stairs arrived today -- yea! Nate and I began working on framing the platform and pony walls for the landings. It took a bit....but we got the walls framed and platforms set before quitting for the day. In the morning we'll be able to nail off the landings and set the stairs, which means that we'll be able to abandon the ladders.

While we were demolishing the stair opening, I managed to get more crap in my eye, which led to MORE irritation in my scratched eye. So I had to take a break again in the middle of work to give the eye some rest. Nate took advantage of the break to "rest" his eyes too.

Right now I'm just hoping to wrap up my mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and framing inspections by Friday so I can begin drywalling. It's dragging on for us, and we're tire -- but we're thinking three more weeks and we'll be done.

Good night, folks!