Safety First

My dad is a safety professional.  Teaches saftey for miners.  Teaches Hunter Saftey.  He takes it very seriously.  Has for a long time.  Naturally, as the children of "Saftey Man", we also can detect unsafe events more than the average human.

Well, my "Safety Kid" alarm should have been working a bit better when Nathan showed me this Stanley board tool.  It is made for using as a board bender (when you have crooked boards, but need them to be plum, you can use this tool to torque the board into position realtively easily).  It's also got a hammer head and a crow bar at the other end.


If you see this tool and are tempted to buy, please put it back on the shelf...

 Nathan was using this tool as a hammer last night.  The better tool for his this particular job should have been a sledge hammer, but well we don't have one and this was handy...on the last whack, the tool flung out of his hand, cut through 2 layers of pig skin and about 1/2" - 3/4" deep into his hand between thumb and fore finger.

Yeah.

We visited the Walk In clinic, received 6 stitches and a tetanus shot.  No tendons or nerves were damaged.  He hurts, of course. 

I'm mad that my "double ended tools are bad" rule didn't pop into my head when I saw this tool the first time :/  Our conversations later have recovered a few new safety rules:

1.  Double ended tools are a bad idea.  Period.  Got that Stanley?
2.  If you have to try that hard, you are doing something wrong (N said he was really wailing on the thing he was working on...working TOO hard...)
3.  The motivation of saving money & materials isn't a good enough excuse.
4.  Remember that other people can spend time taking the widget apart to be used later & use new materials. (or don't mix demo with building)

On a good note.  I think the family did a really good job of changing plans and taking care of what was needed efficiently and lovingly.  All kinds of plans got put on hold, rearranged, then rearranged again.  BUT no one yelled, no one freaked out...

And...now the "Snoopervisors" have asked to help...well Chuck did!  Bill has a tool that will help Nathan, so great contributions on all fronts!  To add insult to injury, the plywood delivery came today.  We were excited to get some sheathing on the floors!  Still are, it'll just be a few more days. 

Not for the faint of heart...but scroll down for injury pics if you are interested...

Getting wound cleaned out

OUCH!  deep in the middle, not so much toward the palm. 

Meet the Snoopervisors!

I'd like you to meet a couple of men that, indeed, without their witty commentary, this would be a much more boring project!

They call themselves The Snoopervisors!  Chuck and Bill!  Chuck tells me he is still in training. I'm sure he'll get enough hours in on this project to become a bonefide Snoopervisor! Chuck is our new neighbor and Bill lives a few blocks away.  He and Chuck are good buddies, and are often now spending their time in the shade with a cool drink in hand giving Nathan all kinds of grief while Nathan sweats in the hot sun!  Nathan says this picture doesn't do them justice!




Chuck and Bill

While eating dinner at "the property" one evening, I heard Bill say "15 minutes"!  This is how long Bill gave Nathan for his dinner break! lol




"15 minutes for dinner"!

It's fun to have a couple of people around who enjoy laughing and lending a hand!  Chuck has come over with a board to level concrete or whatever else needs a quick hand.   Bill is always available with his quick wit, appreciation for hard work and he can pull a quarter out of your ear.  Who doesn't need THAT!

Up, Up and ....

The pony walls are going up nicely!  All of the shorter pony walls along the perimeter are up now and almost all up on the interior.  We did the support walls this way so that we could work with lumber instead of the manufactured I joists.  Nathan can pick up the lumber by himself and either Keith or myself are able to move the joints by ourselves to keep feeding them to Nathan.  With the I joists, the weight would take a couple people to move.  Since Nathan is the crew, we chose a different way to get the job done.

There is all kinds of excitment in the neighborhood about the new house going up.  We've met a few people we didn't know before and have met quite a few people who are out walking the evenings and stop to chat.  There is one couple in particular, who, when they have house guests, part of the 'things to do while in town' is to walk past our property!  It's very sweet how excited these two are.  When they come back next spring (these two are snowbirds) the view will be quite different!

Here's a few pictures taken from some fun vantage points that give you a different view of the house.

This will be the back patio and garden area.  Photo taken on grade.

from our regular photo spot

from the back of the truck, I believe

Foundation walls poured & forms removed!

I can't believe it's the middle of July already!  The begining of July, Leslie and Kevin came to visit.  The foundation forms were mostly up.  Kevin, being a contractor of some 20 years, had some suggestions.  He hopped into the pit and got going on some of them.  I *sadly* forgot to take picutres of the whole family working :/  It was a pretty awesome day!  This photo will have to do, to mark the event.

Terese, Nathan, J, Leslie, Keith, & Kevin

We had a wonderful visit, it was sad to see them go.  By 7am Tuesday morning Leslie and Kevin were long gone and the pumper truck was back to pour the foundation walls.  The foundation walls were much smaller than the footings and that made for some fast and furious moving!  Our neighbor Chuck came over with his grandson and they started leveling concrete with Nathan.  Keith was busy jumping around squirting concrete in the forms! 

The foundation walls are now dried and the forms have been removed.  They were a bit more difficult to remove, but a break and some thinking (and possibly the cooler weather in the evening) allowed the forms to come out with less hassle.  Nathan has been putting on the sill plates, placing more lumber orders.

Folks, we'll be putting the floor framing up soon!!

While Nathan was raking...



So was J! 

J doing some concrete leveling