Wall-E! (Tip o' th' Hat to Barry)

Ran down to the house site this pip emma and threw up the wall seen in the previous post.  It be brace-ed and relatively stable, and, with my imminent departure to worlds unknown for the next 10 days, it'll be quite the feather in my construction hat if The Thing still stands upon my return thereunto--if my construction hat has a place for feathers.  Perhaps I'm getting my Village People characters mix-ed up.

Notice, too, that the mid-to-late afternoon sun is largely shaded on my southern (windowed) and partially shaded on the western wall.  Nice going, Mother Nature; you put the trees in exactly the right spot for my cooling comfort during the impending Dog Days ahead.

On the way out, this monstrosity lay in my path.  I waited for his sluggish self to slytherin off before Bucky and I could make good our escape.

We celebrated with gas station biscuits and fried thingummies.

Wall Y'all

After finishing the last small section of subflooring in the northwest corner of the bedroom, I began laying out and marking for the erection of the west wall of 10'4".  The walls will be 8' up to a ledge where the 1 in 12 shed roof will start.  The area between the top of the wall and the roof will be glass in a large, low angle triangle to the taper in back and have glass in the about 12" of front area above the south wall.

Also, after making a fortuitous wrong turn in Lebanon, I stumbled upon a cache of curbed items and then gleaned the material below--some 1x12s, a 10'x10' silver tarp in perfect condition, and several sheets of transparent green roofing material that can eventually replace the worn tin shed roof some day.

My sister and hubby (and dog) are in town to speak to the cabinet maker and the contractor.  She's really pleased with the house as it's progressing and also likes my build.  Glad she's glad.

More tomorrow--hopefully have at least one wall up and stable.

The View From Above

My NAPA chum Jerry Kirby took me down to Lebanon today in his 1957 Cessna.  Jerry has a late 1940s Swift in which he does aerobatics, but we didn't take that one, sadly.

Anyhoo, Jerry had told me to take my camera and we could get some shots of the land from the Eye in the Sky. And hairrrrr they are:

You can see that Jan's house is almost done, whilst mine has the subfloor on the left (and you can almost make out the little shed to the north).  This is taken to from the southeast.







Again, my little 12x10 rectangle can be seen about 100 feet from Jan's house, now seen from the northwest somewhat.

More work and another post this weekend.  Hopefully, a wall will be up!

Then, Jerry and I flew over towards the Nashville Raceway and landed at a private airstrip that is commonly owned by pilots that live on the edges of the strip.  One of his buddies, a guy named Steve, had us to a great lunch of soup and salad out on his back deck on a gorgeous day.

At the end of lunch, Steve said to me, "How'd you like to go up in the Stearman biplane and do some aerobatics?"  Steve restores and works on planes; his current project is a 1927 Waco, but he has previously restored a 1943 Stearman trainer.  This open cockpit biplane is much heavier than Jerry's Cessna, and much slower, too.  But after strapping in the front seat, putting on the headgear and trying to stay calm, Steve and I took off and flew over the speedway nearby.  Steve did loops and turns and rolls, including an Immelmann, and he did some stalls and dives.  After about 20 breathtaking minutes, we came back to earth.

Jerry and I then headed for home and on the way, he let me take the controls some.  All in all, a great day.