Getting scaffolding built for the second floor and rafter raising. The scaffold is the one-man carpenter's dream (a helping hand)
Research
Spread out on the second floor. Brace your rafters for now.
Rafter detail on newly saw-milled spruce lumber.
"T" is top.
All my best carpentry and poetry teachers taught me to sweep up. Sweep up, be ready for the next day which will be ready for you. And 'poetry teachers' span from redtail hawk and worker ant to the ever literary and nonliterary.
Early August and most of the lumber has been used up from the sawmill. The spruce rafters are all on, strapping nailed down tight a bit less than two-foot on center; we're waiting for the steel roof order which takes a week. While we wait we paint the steel siding and start gathering for the first layer of stone work, which will be all the front gable end.
The back window bought for $2 at a village rummage sale in July. It came with insulated glass to top it off. It's hinged for extra power — to open for a cross breeze on the hottest days. The upstairs loft may one day harbor books or sleeping quarters, or both.
The 25 year old Toyota now off-road, my moving work wagon and toolbox, tailgate for sawing, back bed to catch all the butt ends of lumber. Only two tires slowly go down with air because the rims are that old.
My co-workers "truck." She wanted me to tell you this.
The finished off and painted east side windows. The top decoration I pulled off an old friend's mighty chest of drawers we hauled over one Christmas eve night from New York State. The chest was too old but the drawers I kept and all the decorations were carefully removed. It'll all be used somewhere.
Three essential
tools on
the job.
Interior of chapel — loft floor joists, with rafter butt ends of the lean-to
spiked into place. By mid-August I'll have a storage region built-in under the floor joists to keep loose lumber off the ground.
The steel walls have now been double-coat painted, the building is waiting for its roofing.
The lean-to
From the front gate built decades ago by Bob; stonewall, too.
One hundred miles away, find this spot, out of the
blue, walking around in some town neighborhood. Another person has
taken the time to allow strangers to partake, and raked.
Take a breather, look out at some place different.
The stump of an oak tree I cut down. We carry the stump around as a seat.
Daddy Longlegs is coming along.
Boxing in the gable end, soon ready for two windows
and stone. The bottom course of slate has been started.
The slate is only visually structural, but visual in architecture is often as strong as structural.
Old steel roofing, now siding, and all newly painted.
Cut out of the steel two more rough openings for windows, now to locate those windows.
They'll show up.
One of these two of a twin sugar maple will have to be removed in the Fall. Less danger from falling tree limbs onto the steel roof; more light, sunshine. I should have dropped one of the two trees before the construction began. It is not easy to want to drop a healthy sugar maple tree. Vermont's masthead.
Take part of the afternoon off from the job and go visit an old friend two miles up river in the village.
The covered bridge is out for awhile. . .okay.
But this oldest bridge in the world is in service.
