[Two folding tables are set up, end to end, along Tyrava’s long side; they hold a single board and a scattering of tools. There’s also a couple of rusty folding chairs, a dog crate with a cat crate inside, a covered litterbox with a cardboard box and a gallon of water on top, and an ez-up, still in its bag.]
Finally, FINALLY, things have lined up so that I can start to build.
I got the folding tables set up, with sort of a workshop, not great, but it’s working so far. It gets shade in the late afternoon, & Tyrava shields it from the wind most of the time … when the wind is behaving, which is intermittent at best.
Plus I got lumber. A lotta lumber. Have you LOOKED at the prices for lumber these days? Ye GODS.
(I will gently remind you of the gofundme; the description is RIDICULOUSLY out of date, but money still goes to the overall cause of ‘we build thing to live in’.)
ANYWAY, I bought a vanful of lumber, then set about making a thing for it. This is a familiar task! I have done this before!
… it’s a lot easier starting on a flatbed trailer than on bumpy ground. But I got it figured out. & it turns out that framing is basically framing, whether it’s 2x2s at random intervals or 2x6s at 12 inches on center.
[Two sixteen-foot lengths of 2×6 boards are joined by seventeen twelve-foot 2x6es, set just under twelve inches apart. The entire grid is laid on dusty, mostly barren ground.]
Of course you can’t fit sixteen-foot lumber into the van — not usefully, anyways — so I got a couplea 2×6 eight foot pieces, cut one up, & used it to patch the other four into the right length.
[Two 2×6 boards are butted end-to-end, patched with another piece of 2×6, laid alongside the two; all three are held securely together by a plethora of screws.]
Yes, I’m using screws, not nails. Yes, most people use nails for construction projects that aren’t meant to travel down the highway at 60mph. Look, it’s a habit, & anyway I do better with drill & driver than with a hammer, at least when it’s nails & not copper wire.
[A corner of the floor section. All three visible boards have been attached with screws.]
Having finally got the thing finished up — with a BUNCH of help from Jasper & Morgyn, who hauled lumber, wrangled cats, & helped pick the whole thing up so we could slide boards under whatever part I was working on at the moment — I messed around with getting it properly leveled. It can’t stay there — it’s going to be up on 4×4 skids, which in turn will rest on concrete blocks, which will sit on top of a whole bunch of gravel, after I’ve dug holes to dump the gravel into — but hey, it LOOKS nice.
[A view of the floor joists, from just barely above them. A long yellow level sits on top of the closest board; the bubble is almost, but not quite, centered.]
Good thing, too. Could use a lil work on the whole ‘leveling’ thing.
