Wooden Saddles, Hollywood Silverwork, and the Need for Shares

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Today was spent mostly on cross-beams. There are only a couple of them, but they involve shortened vigas in a really tight space, one that has to work around the dropped ceiling for the bath and the open space for the staircase. And the guys did it all the old way: Cutting saddles into the ends of smaller vigas to fit them together at right angles to the existing full-sized ones. That's what you see running horizontally above.

Tomorrow, they'll finish up this section, which, because it involves a lot of metaphorical moving pieces, is taking longer than simply getting the big beams up and in place. Then, probably before noon, they'll move the tongue-and-groove work to create the herringbone ceiling. Before they install it, though, they're going to treat the wood to preserve it better.

In the middle of all this, the guys who are slated to do the staircase showed up. We're waiting for them to spec it: plans, space, time, cost. At the end of the day, the guy who runs the crew wasn't done; he was back in an hour to drop our hay, which is now lying in beautiful rows in the fields. If all goes well, he'll bale Wednesday (we hope, since the forecast is now calling for rain Thursday and Friday). This is crunch time across the board around here (as it is every year, but not with this much intensity).

Thanks to my beloved belinda ridgewood's diary for us at the GOS, and a great deal of generosity by a great many folks, we've had an influx of donations today. I feel a lot more confident now about being able to order delivery of the lumber for framing the upper level — an order that will probably have to be placed by the end of the day tomorrow. But there's a lot left to do, including the stairs, which will need to be done sooner rather than later, and the subfloor and flooring for the upper level. Those may very well tip over into the next stage of the fundraiser, but for now, everything is very fluid, and the order of business changes daily to match up with whatever makes the most sense at any given moment.

So we'll need continued daily shares, lots of them. First, shares of our YouCaring page via the widgets provided on it, especially the widget code from the purple box at lower right, which gives you this:

I have to say, I'm looking forward to closing this stage out for an unlikely reason: I really want to have the main photo show what the house looks like now, which is more like, you know, a house.

We also need shares of Wings's site, the sales from which are what pay the bills. They also contribute directly to the construction. And lastly, we need folks from the GOS to T&R belinda's diary, and share it widely. Besides, it's got a lot more cool photos in it than this post does: photos of the work that was done today, and of one very special work by Wings himself that found its way to Hollywood last night.

Much gratitude to everyone who has given us a hand with this effort thus far, whether through donations, shares, moral support, or maybe even just holding my virtual hand when I'm feeling marginally hysterical trying to keep all the balls in the air. I'm hoping for a slowdown toward the end of the week in things I absolutely have to get done around here, although I've learned never to depend on anything this far out. Or even a few hours out. One thing I will (almost) feel confident in promising, though, is new photos for tomorrow. Now I hope I haven't jinxed it.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.