aviary, day 1

is our new house ready yet?

Sitting in the store, it didn't look like a lot of lumber. Sitting on the front porch, it still really doesn't look like all that much. But loading it into two rolling carts, then loading it into a rented gigantic home depot truck, then unloading it onto the front porch: there is a lot of lumber. Not visible are the 8 sheets of plywood that are around the other side of the porch. They were out of the 4-inch T-1-11 plywood siding that I wanted, so there are still four more sheets to buy. Plus all of the 1/2" hardware mesh for the bottom two feet of the walls, and the bigger livestock mesh for the rest of the walls. Plus some more incidentals I'm sure.

trust me, that is a lot of wood.

Charlie tried to give me perspective by reminding me that I'm pretty much building a one car garage. Perhaps after this I'll be able to build our garage someday instead of hiring a contractor. Then again, after this I may just want to sit in a lawn chair with a glass of bourbon and *watch* a contractor build the garage.


We got all of the wood home and Charlie went off to work. I got my work area ready and will start tomorrow. Today was an unusual sunny fall day and I took advantage of that to set up my foul-weather work station. The front porch will be best, so I rigged up a tarp that I'll pull up whenever I'm working under it. For now it's got one end tethered down to provide easier rain run-off. My primary and spare drill batteries are charged, and I have all of my various boxes of screws and nails for toenailing, and other nails for regular use. Now I just need steroids.

must enter hot tub tonight.

Since it was nice, I tried to get the other side of the house cleaned up a bit. Just need to borrow a pressure washer to clean off the patio and it will be all set.

Gladys beams up to the mother ship