Week 5

As predicted,  we spent the week with Sebastian "scratch coating"
(smearing with a cement and sand mix) the outside and I worked on getting some
framework for the first floor up.  
He was sick a bunch of the week and I was suffering the intense 
heat -- gone now... so things were slow.  

The walls look a lot more like a basement now, at least from the outside.  
Meanwhile we also had some other
work going on -- I hired a local woodsperson to fell a dying walnut that a neighbor gave me
as a gift,  and tomorrow he'll cut a half dead oak we have here and then mill those
and also a lot of smaller fir that we cut for the house.  

The point is to have the Fir to use to build my shop eventually,  and the oak and 
walnut will start to dry so that hopefully they can be cabinetry or maybe even 
flooring in the house someday.  We'll see.... depends on how it looks once milled.  
Clementine proved invaluable,  once again.

 We are waiting for a couple of steel posts that I hope will be delivered this coming week, to really be able to complete the skeleton of the floor.   

Also, there are a few more layers to the waterproofing the outside basement walls... but I hope  that by sometime next week we might be able to resume laying blocks 
and get ourselves working up toward the top of the first floor walls.   

Even with a little piece of the floor in, and some plywood thrown on top,  you begin to get a different feel when the orientation of the house starts to be as it will be -- from the top
and the other side,  rather than from what will be the basement door,  in the end.   
Here Jennifer "enters" through the front door spot
for only the 
second time ever.  And here she explores what will someday be 
her study. 


All in all,  not the most productive week ever... but things are moving and turning out pretty well,  so I'm trying to be nice to myself about the pace.