Wrapping Up a Blistering Week

This fourth week of construction was been many things, exhilarating and torturously infernal to name two.

After nearly two months of non-summer, temperatures soared into the mid 30s the first four days of the week. None of us was conditioned to the heat and we moved accordingly. Then, as has been the pattern, Friday brought much cooler temperatures, then rain. Despite the heat exhaustion, we made good progess on the first floor.

With the concrete walls poured, the perimeter wall measurements needed to be re-established. The 2x6 wall plates were positioned and bolted to the concrete, then 64 engineering floor trusses and ten laminated beams – some as long as 42' – were strung over the basement, positioned, tacked down and leveled after the rim joists were cut to size and nailed to the trusses. By Thursday evening, four sheets of sub-floor were screwed down, with the sub-floor virtually done by Friday afternoon.

As the four of us left the site on Friday, Matt Taplin was still busy spreading the crushed limestone rock for the driveway base. Unfortunately, their backhoe had developed a transmission shifting problem during the afternoon, so we passed George who was already on the 35-minute drive back to Stonewall.

The site changed dramatically over this week. With the hole backfilled and the garage area now ready for pad-forming construction, we are able to move around so much more freely. The drag on that freedom, however, has been the crushing effect of the heat and humidity. I am grateful for what DND were able to achieve under the circumstances. If the weather holds as forecasted for the coming week (low 20s and sunny), we should have near perfect working conditions and great progress.

With eight weeks to closing on our Winnipeg home, it's hard not to be panicky about where we'll be at on Ruth's Ridge by that time. Over and above the transfer of our household effects, there is the pressing issue of our living circumstance. We're still likely five-to-six weeks away from lock-up stage, at which time we can get our stuff moved into the garage. That's fine, but we won't have the house live-in ready before Oct. 15th. Happily, we have a couple of extremely gracious offers, but I'm doing my best not to think about those logistics; I need to stay focused on tomorrow and the coming week.

The next two-three weeks will mark the greatest change in appearance, with the garage pad, walls and roof trusses going up. One more sleep and back to work. Happy Sunday.