Exterior framing done; stairs begun. $500 match on offer; shares needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

It has been a day. One in which I have had no sleep for nearly forty hours — zero, zip, nada — so bear with me. Given today's workload, I'm not especially coherent by now.

The crew finished up the east wall and put up the entire west wall early today. The exterior frame is now done, save a couple of adjustments (one window that will be added based on fixture placement, etc.). For now, though, the house looks like this:

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

It's now visible from the highway in either direction.

I could not, of course, get up there to see what it looks like from that vantage point, much less get photos. The only way up is an extension ladder, and my balance has grown so bad thanks to my illness that it's not something I can safely do anymore. They tried to get me to go up yesterday, but I was so wobbly that I turned back halfway up.

And so first thing this morning, Toney and José came to Wings with a proposition.

They wanted me to be able to see it, and to participate kin the process comfortably, but they knew I had made the right decision yesterday not to try to climb up. And so they asked Wings whether it would be all right if, once they finished the upstairs exterior framework you see above, they turned their attention to building our stairs.

Yes, we had been talking about a spiral staircase, but we were both (well, all of us, actually) dissatisfied with both the vendors who gave us bids and their estimates, which were all over the map, but ranged from expensive to exorbitant. One was little double the cost of the other. At that time, the guys told us that they could 1) build us a permanent set of stairs, with a landing or two to make them fit, or 2) build us a temporary set that could be extracted easily if we wanted to install a spiral staircase down the road, and we had pretty much decided that we would take them up on it.

Instead, they moved the process up so that I will be able to climb safely. Work on the stairs began today:  

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

It's the very first stages, but it won't take them long.

And I was so touched that they would think this was important.

Of course, all that said, we're still up against a major deadline. With the stairs and the upper-level interior framework, they have enough to keep them busy for this week, but as of Monday, they need to be able to start work on the roof. We are still in need of roughly $4,400 to be able to order the materials. Tonight, belinda has a diary up for us at the GOS, and there is a $500 match on offer: If we raise another $500, it instantly becomes $1,000. And that takes us down to $3,400 very fast.

So please go T&R and share belinda's diary. Please also share daily the link to our YouCaring page via the widgets provided, especially the widget code from the box at lower right, which produces this:

Please also share the link to Wings's Web site daily. If you're contemplating commissioning holiday gifts, now is the time to contact me to arrange the work, so that he can get it done and shipped in time. And speaking of gifts, tomorrow morning I'll have an all-new work, one he finished only late yesterday (and it's fabulous, believe me).

Many thanks to everyone for helping us get to this point. We're in the final stretch, but unfortunately, it's about three separate stages rolled into one in an attempt to beat the winter weather. We have a lot yet to do if we're going to make it. We'll be meeting with clients tomorrow who are also good friends, so I'll be more offline than on until late in the day, probably. After Thursday, I'm hoping we can both slow down and catch up a little bit.

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.