it looks a house!

Here's the progress as of Saturday evening. There are still a bunch of rafters to install. And plywood sheathing on the house and roof, but the shape looks like a house. :)


On Friday, a wonderful crew of folks came up to help work with the crane to put the walls Dad's been building in place. (And a few beams, too.)

Thanks to Josh, Andrew, Don and Jay for their help. With Dad, Matt and I, and a patient crane operator named John, it was a wonderful crew.
You can see a little video of the action here. We edited out the *long* pauses to make things fit right.


Everyone worked hard on tall ladders to make everything fit together.
Our last "lift" of the day was the ridge beam that will hold the roof in place. With Don guiding the crane, it fit neatly into the frame of the house. All is well.

Today (Saturday), Matt and I, Phil and Shan, Dad and Jay worked on setting some of the rafters in place. That ridge beam is really high. We made Matt climb the ladder. (And tie a rope around his waist and to the beam!)
With a little ingenuity and teamwork, we devised a workable method for hoisting the rafters up all that height. Hooray for ropes.

It was a day of good teamwork. Nearly half of the rafters are up, the walls are all plumb, and the frame should be secure. Dad heard a forecast of "hurricane strength" Santa Ana winds, so we put a few extra nails in...We worked 'til dark (and, well, a little past.) Enough to get the worklights up to help illuminate the nailing-in of the last rafters to go up.