Gosh what a week. Has it been a week? It’s been a week somewhere I’m sure.

We pretty much got the first floor dried in late Friday afternoon. Randy decided to take a couple of days off so I made plans to spend the weekend at the property. I spend Saturday morning getting everything together I figured I needed and boldly set off for a new adventure. I spent most of Saturday afternoon getting settled then along about dark things began to go south.

I was unable to find my gas grill in storage but wasn’t concerned since I had a brand new Coleman stove. Well, you don’t just toss a steak in a Coleman stove and cook it. You need a skillet or some such device. I didn’t have one. Two pop tarts, a pack of peanut butter crackers and a Busch beer doesn’t sound exciting unless your stomach is on dead empty.

I remember when I was a kid that Coleman lanterns were extremely bright. I’m sure that they are still so but my eyes kept telling me otherwise. Candles did help but I was left longing for my deep cycle battery, solar panel and led lights somewhere in storage.

Then I broke out the air mattress only to discover that it requires some kind of special fitting to blow it up. No problem says I, I have an air compressor. Nope. Bicycle pump. Nope. Shop vac. Nope. Dammit.

Which led to me setting up the cot. An experience I hope to never have again. Thirty minutes later the cot is finally sitting there and it’s getting cold. As in really cold. You would think that a Coleman lantern and a bunch of candles would keep the chill off a 12×12 room that was reasonably air tight. Nope.

I had a propane heater that comes with all kinds of dire warning about what happens when you use it indoors. I was worried enough that I decided not to fire it up until I had the carbon monoxide
detector working. Of course I couldn’t find the detector. Did I mention it was very cold that night?

So Ziggy and I settled in for what we both hoped would be a restful night. At first I tried to put Ziggy in a sleeping bag. He seemed interested until I started to zip it part way up around him. Suddenly he screamed “It’s a trap!”, bolted for the door which was shut and latched then refused to come near the sleeping bag again.

So I ended up in a sleeping bag on the cot while he slept on the only blanket I had brought on the floor. By 4 am it was cold as hell so all the good intentions regarding the carbon monoxide detector went out the window and I lit off the propane heater.

The cot itself was an experience. It was hard as a brick.

By Sunday afternoon I was getting fairly hungry but couldn’t face another freeze dried meal. I don’t know who writes the online reviews for those things but if that is “some good eating” to them they really need cooking classes. Then it struck me, pallets are made of untreated hardwood. An hour later I had two steaks sizzling over a nice bed of coals. Ziggy doesn’t get human food all that often but he agreed that it was the best steak he had ever had. I didn’t bother to tell him he had never had one before but hey, it was a celebration of sorts.

Monday morning I was up before the 5 am alarm, had two cups of decent coffee and set to work. Got some bamboo planted, did a bunch of clean up and set about getting material sorted. By 1 pm the rain clouds were rolling in so I headed back to town with a two page list to bring next time.

It’s been a long three days but we’ve made some real visible progress. We installed the stairs to the front porch, got the front porch deck “mostly” then late yesterday afternoon put in two windows and the first layer of some of the siding. For security reasons I chose small windows that we mounted rather high in the wall. It’s hard to tell from this pic but the front door is pretty wide. I might decide to cut it back in the future but for now I’ve went with large so I can move equipment in and out easily.

Just some random pix. My DSL is still slow as sin so I have to que a whole slew of pix and post whatever it will upload. Another line item on my ever growing “To Do” list. My plan was to spend the weekend out there but I’ll have to burn Saturday getting everything ready then hopefully drive out before dark. Of course that depends on whether we finish the siding plus seal the place well enough to heat with a kerosene heater. I would be OK in a sleeping bag but Ziggy absolutely refuses to sleep in one.

Needless to say I’m getting a bit excited and looking forward to getting settled in a bit. There’s still a mega ton of work ahead to get the place finished but then it will never be truly finished.

Thank god I’m a country dawg.

Well, it will be if I can upload pix. My DSL isn’t the best right now so uploading pix takes forever if at all.

This is the first floor porch looking into the first floor. We have it partially frames and some temporary decking in place. My back is still celebrating because I don’t have to crawl on my hands and knees to get past the batter boards. Next is overall progress. On the second floor you can see the start of the framing for the roof. All of the 4×4 posts will be capped with a double row of 2×4 which will support the framing as well as add about three inches of height. The second floor porch isn’t framed as yet.

If you are interested in seeing more detail just click on the thumbnails in any post. This will take you to a larger image. Click it again for a giant image. Use your browser back button to return to the post.

First floor looking out to front porch. Right now the floor is a single sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. A sheet of 1/2 inch will be added for insulation, sound deadening and stiffness. We’re using nails, screws and liquid nails so the floor is really tight.

Added foundations. In all there will be ten of these with ten to twelve bags of concrete each. The post footers (yellow tubes) have about five bags each so each foundation weighs a total of about 1600 to 2000 pounds each. I have to admit that I wasn’t really sold on these at first but now I like the idea. In time I may build new forms and encase the footers even higher up.

After crunching numbers I’ve realized that cash is starting to look thin. I have most of the material needed to finish the shed and most everything necessary to make it habitable. I still have to add a well and solar power. The well will be a fairly low dollar eater but I’ve had to scale back the solar plans quite a bit. Since my power needs are going to be minimal this won’t be a major headache.

With this in mind my new priorities are finish the first floor porch stairs, finish framing and laying the deck on the porch and sheath the first floor. I’ve already bought windows so they will go in while we’re putting up the plywood for the exterior walls. Due to height restrictions the doors are oddball sizes so they will have to be built on site. No biggie. I hope to spend this weekend in my new pole barn and start working out the kinks of living totally off grid.

Tired so short post. Mostly pictures. We’ve started framing the second floor. We wrapped the shed and porch in 2×12 and 2×4. Added some bracing. And took all the head knockers down. My scalp is raw from banging my head on them.

We had a solid night and day or rain which not only set us back but also led to difficulties on site. The area I’m building in is made up of about 18 inches of left over wood chips from logging years ago. This
does not make for the most solid of driving surfaces when water
logged. Driving out the next morning after the rain the first thing I did was sink the truck up to the axles so we spent over an hour trying to get unstuck. In the process I dug several deep mud holes and pulled a really nice pine tree out of the ground. The holes can be filled but I’m still pissed about losing the pine tree. Now I have installing steel poles in concrete around the place on my ever growing to do list.

After we finally got the truck out, held appropriate services for the fallen tree and got a fire started, we made some decent progress. By the end of the day yesterday we had the entire first floor of the shed framed with it mostly covered in the first layer of plywood. We’re putting down a layer of 3/4 inch plywood then covering that with a layer of 1/2 inch plywood. All joints are being set with deck screws and nails. The plywood is being given the same treatment with liquid nails for good measure. It felt good to finally stand on the new floor and be able to see that things are starting to come together. Frustrating is far to mild of a word to describe what this experience has been like so far.

ALL OF YOUR GARBAGE ARE MINE HA- HA- HA- HA

Would you believe that I have to haul in water while working in a swamp? Well, I don’t have to but the nearest water is several hundred feet away over a very rough path, so I haul it in.

The day before yesterday we made some serious progress and ended the day with six poles left to be set, two footers in place and several  bags of concrete left over. We took yesterday off since Randy had some other work
to do and I spent the day mostly sleeping. This morning I picked up another six bags of concrete and loaded a 35 gallon drum of water in the truck.

By mid today we had two more footers in and another pole set. The weather was turning bad and we became worried about high winds damaging the poles. We decided to install additional bracing then continue work. Before we knocked off for the day we were able to get the 2×12 batter board in place which is the first permanent lumber except for the 4×4 poles. In this picture the 2×12 on the front is actually the front of the first floor porch. The row behind it will be the front of the shed itself. The floor will be about six inches below the top of the 2×12 which will have to be notched in places for steps, a ramp, doors etc. All of the other lumber is temporary bracing that will be removed at some point as we get the floor installed and move upward. It is nearly four feet from the bottom of the batter board to the ground. I wanted this shed well above the high water mark.

There are certain benefits to getting old. I just can’t remember them right now.