Getting In On the Ground Floor

Tonight my children and I will load out my truck for tomorrow's big event.

Tomorrow afternoon my son and I will head to the woods to camp and build.

After nearly a year and a half of prep work, dreaming and pining for this day we will actually begin construction.  Now I know we've laid cement and rebar but somehow that just doesn't feel the same as putting lumber into place and driving nails.  Lord willing, by Monday evening there will be a level sub-floor constructed in a place where two years ago only trees and deer dwelled.

In full disclosure, the floor will not be complete on Monday, as I am only buying every other floor joist this weekend.  I'll lay the beams and get them level.  Then I'll frame the perimeter and mark up all the joist placement.  But I'll only be laying every other joist this weekend.  This was a sort of accidentally on purpose genius, if I do say so myself.  It allows me to get things level and square and sets me up perfectly for the next step where I will deck it all with tongue and groove plywood.  By doing it in two phases I am able to knock out the hardest part (level and square) and break up my out of pocket cost so as not to need to touch savings.  This makes my lovely bride smile.

When we are done this weekend I'll tarp it all to prevent water access and then patiently (read: only talking about it 7 or 8 times a day) wait until the funds are available to install the remaining joists and deck it.  The markup will be done, so it should be a pretty straight forward weekend's worth of work there.

Once the floor is decked, it's wall framing time.  Again, my lovely bride will be happy when I pull all those 2x4 studs out from under the kids beds.  I bought them last year when Lowes had a deal.  Suffice it to say, without a garage my storage options were limited.  In a related note, the boys have been unable to jam junk under their beds.  Judging by the project that was cleaning out from under the girls beds last week, I should probably buy more 2x4 studs.

Again, I am indebted to Henry David Thoreau and Librivox.  My drives home from the office for the past 2 weeks have taken me back to Walden Pond where the simple wisdom of slowing down and living deeply have held me over while I had to wait for what seemed like an eternity.  Progress, it would appear, moves my leaps and bounds but at a snails pace simultaneously.  Such must be the nature of all things meant to last, I suppose.