Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Building Upstairs....

Building upstairs is a completely new adventure. 
It's high up there and there isn't much room, but you still need all the stuff to build with....lots of rearranging goes on...move the stack of lumber here, no there, now here...
We got one wall built.  We thought we would go out and push it over a bit so we could build the second one.  Ha.  We could not even budge that huge big thing.
Plan B.
Simple machine science lessons come in handy....levers and wheels, oh, and brute strength...such as it was.  I've certainly got enough bruises to look like a brute!
Here's the plan:
Little husband lifted and I placed wood blocks underneath.


And then comes the brute force part.  We squatted and pushed it just about 3 inches at a time across the wood blocks.  Relever and relocate the wood blocks and push.  Over and over until we had moved it about 5 feet.
 This was a staged photo taken after Stevie got there.  It is hard to be construction crew and photography crew!
See how far we moved that sucker...24feet x 8feet.

Of course, by the time we moved it far enough to build another wall, we had mostly covered up the stairs so we had to climb a ladder up...


We called a friend, because the 2 guys we were going to pay to help us didn't show up for 2 days, and Troy came gladly and was a huge help in standing that first wall...he built a beautiful home in an old barn recently.  There are no photos of this because it was labor intensive!  But here is a photo of the first wall standing...Troy is checking for level.

Wow.  My house is getting tall.

2nd wall is built on the floor and this time we use wheels and levers to put it mostly in place.

2nd shift of helpers arrive and there is no time to sit down and eat, so you eat while you work!

Hungry Larry getting ready to hand this up to Stevie and I...well, push it up and hope we can pull it! 
We could.
Then, the sun set and the moon rose...


And we finished up by the light of Stevie's cell phone flash light!  Gotta love that new phone!


And then it was too dark to take a picture of two walls standing....
Long day, lots of progress thanks to good helpers!  2 more walls to go by Saturday...we're on track.

5 comments:

no spring chicken said...

Once more I am SO impressed. You make me feel so lazy Donna. Yikes, maybe I am lazy... :{

Blessings, Debbie

K said...

Debbie is NOT lazy. But you are so beyond - ummm - what's the opposite of lazy? GO GETTINGNESS???? Diligence? Dogged determination? That the rest of us feel like we might as well accept our lilliputian lives and just go take a nap. I'm actually scared of putting up walls like that - way the heck up in the air. And what if the wind comes a long.? HOLY CATS. Your house could take off like a land ship! Hurray for cel phone flashlights! And friends.

Donna said...

No, Debbie, you do not strike me as lazy and the fact is, I am. I love to lay in bed and read or craft...for hours...but no time this go around. Kristen, I think dogged determination may be the best description...we started and now we need to finish!
Yeah, the wind. I usually LOVE the wind, but I was not loving it so much the past 2 days...and was so happy to see both walls still standing when we went out there this morning. We got rained out today, so the third wall is built, but not standing. Tomorrow...

W-S Wanderings said...

Upstairs. Um, wow! All I really remember of our upstairs is standing on the subfloor, and trying to wrap my head around the new view (new part of the house AND the house was raised). And feeling very unsettled because I was up so high and there were no real walls. Not keen on heights.

Donna said...

WSW...I know. All of a sudden my house was tall! Now, I need to get the windows cut out and installed so I can see out from up there. I used to have a height issue, but this has helped...