Big Beam Tuesday

Because it was such a big day on the job site, it deserves another post. Here's a time lapse with two bits of video showing how hard the fellas worked today. When the beam got near the top, I had to silently bail and climb down because I just couldn't watch anymore. The guys were doing a great job of keeping it safe, but I began to feel nauseous from the degree of difficulty. But, it took me so long to climb down (unlike Bill the Monkey) that they were done by the time I got down to the first floor and I was able to get the big thumbs up of a finished task before I fully retreated. Take a look at the photos and video, and realize how your homes may have been built. Who knew?

...or is Bill a superhero?

There's really no other way to say it. If a team of four people can lift a heavy beam into the air, aren't they superheroes? Today, the biggest beam in the house was put into place with a lot of intelligent planning and hard work. It's enough to make a concerned office-worker wife go green with nausea watching this happen, but no one was injured and a big feat was a big success. Who needs play action figures when you've got the real thing?

Is Bill a monkey...

When all of your ladders are already pressed into service and you need to climb down from the second floor, you just swing from the rafters.

One handsome transom

One side benefit of our little project is all the cool words that I get to learn. Like "transom." I've heard Bill talk about them in the past, but for some reason, the definition doesn't seem to stick, perhaps because I am visually oriented. So, when he said, "Let's go talk about the transom," I said, "Uh, sure."

According to the Wikipedia entry that quotes the Efficient Windows Collaborative, "In architecture, a transom is the term given to a transverse horizontal structural beam or bar, or to the crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window above it, as opposed to a mullion which refers to a vertical structural member." Right. No wonder I'm having trouble with recall. Thanks a mullion for another new word!

So, here's our soon-to-be handsome transom, or at least where the transom will go, separating our living room from the office. At some point, we will find an old salvage window to install in this space to allow light to be shared between the two rooms via skylights and windows. Don't be concerned with the seriously out-of-plum framing. That is an artifact of taking a panoramic photo on its side, the only way to get a shot from floor to ceiling. That's just how we roll.

The Evita balcony is heading north

This the back wall, where our bedroom will be located. There will be a small balcony named "The Evita Balcony," from which I expect to address my people, AKA the dogs. No singing, though. Wouldn't want a people's revolt.

Dogs don't climb ladders alone

Tinker wants very much to join the crew up on the second story but can't quite master the ladder. She will be running up and down the stairs soon, though. After some fine carpenter builds them. Don't tell her that Bill once carried 55-pound Nikki up a ladder to a roof. Woof!

Goodbye, knob and tube

One of the things we will be most happy to leave behind is our old knob and tube wiring. But, we will keep the pieces to use in a future piece of art. We were required by the insurance company to install a circuit breaker instead of the original fuse box way back when we bought the house, but the old wiring was still in use. Until now!

Take a wide view of things

This is already one of my favorite spots in which to stand and take in the project. The left portion is the kitchen, looking towards the living room near the front door. The middle doorway goes to the laundry room with half bath. The right side is the family room, where we expect to host many of you sometime. The sunlit area in the middle right will be a stairwell to the second story. Click for a larger view.

The old west boardwalk

Every girl in the Old West needs a boardwalk to keep her petticoats out of the mud. Or, just her shoes. Thanks to Bill's thoughtfulness, nary a shoe leather or other man-made product touches much wet ground on this job site.