Up until Monday.

Again, I procrastinate updating until it becomes a big headache of a job... Here goes...

We bought some new wood to cut the stairs out of, since the wood we had delivered had split significantly. I marked the wood and Phil cut. Phil and Jessa moved the stairs into place, put in some support beams and treads and we were ready to go.

After checking to make sure that it was the right height, Phil and Jessa trace the original stair side.

Stairs in place.

Adam and I routered and sanded the edges of the stairs.

We had a slow day, so we decided to do some art projects. We needed wood plates to cover the seam where the beams that the floor joists rest on meet. Holes will later be drilled through the plates, beams, and post and will be filled with a threaded metal pole with screws on the end, holding everything securely. Jessa suggested designing the wood plates so that they wouldn't just be square- to put some kind of unique design on each plate. Adam and I worked together on this...

There was a lot of debate about our design. It had to be fat in the middle and fairly long. Adam and I sketched out some ideas, but eventually decided on the silhouette of an ant, since there were so many around (and we destroyed enough ant hills in the process of making this building.)

I jigsawed the ant design out.

Adam shows off the finished product.

After screwing the plates into place (there was also a cloud and an abstract circle design, but the ant was the best,) we tried to drill the holes through the post, beams and such using an auger.

We drilled one hole successfully, but about midway through the second hole, the drill started smoking and died (even though we had given it some breaks in between.) We've tried other drills since, but none seem to have the power we need to make it through everything... So the plates and extra support is still waiting to happen.

Phil, Adam and I (Jessa was out of town) started putting on some sidebeams (unofficial name, I'm sure) that the rafters would later sit on. At first, we were trying to move 17 foot 3x10's, but we soon realized that, since our posts weren't perfectly squared anyway, we could just put the beams up in sections.

Our first section up.

Required some temporary walkways on the outside of the building.

One side done.

More has happened since. There's still almost a full week to document. This weekend will help me catch up. Keep an eye out for updates.