Jim worked on some things in the workshop this morning while it warmed up a bit and then he headed out to continue pole barn construction. Here he's chiseling out the mortise section for the front brace.
Trying it out...
A perfect fit - all fastened together.
The header that will span the garage door has to be done a bit differently to carry all the weight. Jim is making a "sleeper" header that will tuck in between the inside and outside headers and be fastened together to make it extremely strong. In order to do that, he had to hand chisel (no help from the saw here) a step-down from the mortised part of the post.
Chiseling out the other side - this was a difficult job with no saw cuts to help and working off the ladder.
Both sides are done and tops of the interior posts are all cut off.
Jim spent a little time this morning hanging up a couple things in our bedroom - including our The Art of Marriage picture.
He also finished up a mounting board with some hooks for coat storage in the stairwell - getting to be that time of the year.
Then it was back out to the pole barn. He got the back corner bracing up...
Then started working on the other corner. He got the inside post mortised at the top and then got the brace in position.
Making the mortise cuts in the corner post...
The back header is all complete and the bracing done for the corner.
The back framing is all finished!
Next, Jim started working on the front corner. He got two posts mortised out and the inside header attached. Then is was brace work - this is much more difficult. Besides having to figure out all the angles and account for concrete placement, this section needs to have a double brace.
In order to do that, Jim had to figure out all those angles plus figure out where the two braces would intersect. Then he mortised half of the first brace...
A birds-eye view but you can see that he has the other cross brace in place so he knows the exact position that he has to mortise so the two braces fit together flatly. He'll pick up there tomorrow!
All the work has been off ladders so Jim has probably gone up and down the ladder 200 times and moved it all over the building! He was extra glad to come home today!
There was a little rain this morning but Jim was able to get outside and continue some pole barn work, building up the girts on the building.
The snowblower was scheduled to arrive today; Jim was told he would get a call 30 minutes before they arrived. Of course, that didn't happen. Jim also was under the impression that it would be delivered by a semi truck; instead, a bigger box truck came up the driveway in the early afternoon.
However, you can see from this picture that it wasn't strapped down properly or positioned correctly on the pallet. So instead of just pulling up to the truck with the Bobcat and taking off the pallet with the forks, it was a big production. Jim had to get up on the truck and try to help the driver get things positioned. Seeing as how this attachment weighs about 800 pounds, no one was moving it by hand!
They tried to position it sideways so that Jim would be able to hook on to the attachment directly with the Bobcat, but that was extremely difficult too.
Jim finally was able to use the straps and pull it towards the end of the truck with the Bobcat.
But as you can see, it is sitting very precariously on the pallet so it wasn't easy.
Finally, it was to the point where Jim could reach into the back of the truck and connect to the attachment.
Bringing it off the truck...
Whew - success! As you can see, it looks almost brand new! The decals aren't even scratched or dirty. Jim really found a wonderful piece of equipment.
Just from visual inspection, the only issue is that one of the connections has a tear in the wire housing - it looks like it got pinched at some point. Jim will contact the dealer to see if they will help with that.
That is one mean looking snowblower!
But no time to play - back to working on the pole barn! He got the header started in the back...
The outside headers are all complete!
Jim started working on the permanent bracing but this took some calculation. Jim had to figure out exactly where the brace would end up after the concrete pad is poured.
Next step is to create the mortise sections on the posts for the inside headers. These cuts have to be deeper so Jim got out his bigger saw.
To make the chiseling part of this job a tad easier, Jim bought a new chisel - that is a big one!
Starting to chisel out the cuts...
Makes this job a bit easier to have a bigger chisel!
Cleaning up the area...
First one all done!
Then Jim "fixed the newel post" - so much of our family jokes come from Christmas Vacation! Just in case you aren't familiar with the scene...
Jim's version...cutting off the top of the interior posts...
End-of-the-day picture - Jim got 2 more posts cut out and the first piece of interior header put in place!
It was warmer today so Jim was able to get a coat of polyurethane on the kitchen window sashes. The only problem was that this is prime wasp season so Jim had to work quickly and smartly to keep the wasps from coming inside while he took the sashes out.
Then it was back to work on the pole barn, cutting wood. Haven't seen Jim do this in awhile!
Building the girts up...
Putting the first header up on the front!
Continuing the header over the garage door...
Late in the afternoon, we had a neighbor stop by. This is the fellow that helped Jim lift the furnace into place on the wall - he hadn't been over since then. So they chatted awhile and he came in and looked at the apartment. It's nice to see neighbors but Jim always feels like he should be working instead when the clock is ticking like it is! Plus, we continue to have Spectrum problems so I had to call Jim in at one point today to deal with some of the technical issues. But things are coming along great!
Jim has had rainy weather for the last two days. In fact, the weather changed my return trip plans - Jim didn't want me driving home at night in the rain. So I split the trip up in two days - it gave me a little more time with my mom on Tuesday and I was able to get home before dark today. It was a great trip and I'm so happy that I had time to spend with my mom and family.
Because of the weather, Jim hasn't been able to work on the pole barn for two days. It sure was amazing to me to drive up the driveway and see the building though! When I left, it was just a pile of wood on the driveway!
So Jim spent the last two days doing inside work, including spending time yet again with Spectrum technicians. The cable is working now but we'll see how long that lasts!
He spent a lot of time organizing - filling up our new shelves in the workshop, doing some furnace work, and organizing his spaces after lots of varied work lately.
Jim also did some window work - he stained the porthole window in the stairwell. He also had to put hardware on the windows that he is working on staining in the apartment because the temperatures got low enough that he needed to totally lock the windows.
We had originally started with light almond fixtures in the kitchen but wanted them changed to white to match the subway tile we intend to use. So poor Jim had to work on replacing and rewiring lots of receptacles and light switches! He has two more to go but the kitchen looks really nice. He even replaced our light switches for the fixtures over the table and over the sink with dimmer switches.
He is starting to work on replacing the door sill with a much-improved one he found online. More to come on this project!
