All Hands On Deck

We were having a house full of company for July 4th, so one of the priority projects before that was to clean up outside. Boy, does the stuff accumulate at a jobsite! One seriously full pickup truck full went to the dump. The dump, like everything else, is an hour away.

Then since the grass was growing faster than a baseball player on "performance enhancing supplements", Ed wanted to mow it again before fireworks. That always takes a day and a half.

We had a fallen tree to saw up and get out of the edge of the pasture, then split with the log splitter, and stack. I think we have enough wood now for the next two winters.

Poor Ed...his mind and heart were on the construction project, and the other chores kept getting in the way.

Before Ed could resume shingling he had to build the deck at the back of the apartment, which meant he had to construct a drain pan to drain to downspouts, then put up Trex deck over that. Still can't put up the rail because the deck is still our only egress.

He is also going to drop the soffits (!?) down to be the same level as the balcony so that the lower porch/patio..whatever..ceiling is all one plane. Does that make sense?

Then back to shingles. My son in law, Dan, arrived before the holiday and the guys couldn't stand to sit around when there were nails to drive, so up they went. They got all the outlooks hung, which are stained cedar, and got the shingles completely done on the one side. It is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, it is also the side that is hardest to see...plus, the scaffolding is still up.

In the interests of time (and the fact that insulation and sheet rock are not fun), we decided to sub out those jobs. Insulation guy comes next week, and we've been taking bids for sheetrock. In real life that means that pretty much everything has to come out of the garage.

Once that is done, things are going to go in fast forward and I'll be going crazy. Plus the doublewide is sold and I have to get everything out of that by mid-August. Part of selling the doublewide is taking down the deck that surrounds the west side. Busy busy busy!