BE-COMING HOME: making room(s)

Room Service?  Send up a larger room.
[Groucho Marx]

As soon as the floor was down, the guys got started on the first-floor framing.

When Neil came by on Thursday 1 August, we had most of the north wall.

By Friday the 2nd, when we met Adrian up at the site,

a good portion of the west wall was up, as well.

Jere and Martín lift the heavy beams and flooring by means of this clever scaffold-elevator.

which moves around the house, as needed.

Our east wall is mostly doors and windows; these giant pieces of metal will bolster the frame and support the top floor.

With the perimeter complete, some interior framing, and a couple of overhead beams to suggest the ceiling, suddenly there was a palpable difference between “outside”

and “inside”.

Rooms were beginning to emerge from the nebulous house-space; the interior was taking on real definition.  (The pics above and below were taken by Reiner on Friday 9 August – just a week after Adrian’s visit.)

Oh, and btw, that white work-table in the foreground of the “inside” photo?  This highly-mobile bit of furniture has been a permanent resident on the site since work began.  It’s popped up in plenty of previous blog-posts, for example:

I never know where I’ll find it next – but it’s fun re-discovering it each time, in a “Where’s Waldo?” sort of way.  Just thought I’d point it out, in case you wanted to join me in a virtual “Where’s Table?” game.

Back to our story… Allison Sheppard came all the way from New Zealand to get a gander at our future digs.  Well, ok, she came to NorCal for a wedding and to see her dad – but we did get to steal her away for a day and show off our project.

Here she is in the guest room (appropriately enough).

This part of the tale ends with more good news:  thanks to glass doors and a giant kitchen window, apparently the wonderful view to the west will be visible (or glimpse-able, anyway) from the backyard.