West Wall 2

These are the west-wall pieces I had at the beginning of the day. The window frame was square and the ridge-board-holder was solid and straight, so I hadn't dismantled them.

After so much rain this past week, this day seemed blue, blue, blue. Check out this sky! (Find the plane.)

The water was very blue, too. (See it behind Bear? No, not the blue tarps; the river beyond them.)

Not to be outdone, George did a lot of hanging out in the JayBee today as well.

I listened to tenth-anniversary-of-9/11 coverage while I worked today. There were times I just stopped working and sat and cried. Even still, I managed to keep plodding along.

I decided to start by building the straight wall pieces.

These two pieces (above) look pretty straightforward, wouldn't you say? The outer studs are simply single studs. The inner studs are double studs that will hold the header between them at the top of the wall (bottom of photo). (See the header in the next photo.) Each side has a simple, short bottom plate at the bottom of the wall (top of photo). Straightforward and simple will not necessarily keep me from creating problems for myself, however. I ended up attaching the bottom plate on the right wall piece (left in photo) three times! After I first attached that bottom plate with six screws, I realized the bottom plate was upside down. (It may seem as if the top and bottom of that bottom plate would be identical, but they're not because of how I've adjusted the bottom to sit flat on the sill.) So, I removed the screws, flipped the bottom plate over, and reattached it. That's when I realized that the double stud was flipped backwards. So, I removed those four screws, flipped the double stud, and reattached it. Duh!

I added the header...

...and the first top plate.

Then I took a deep breath and started to add the top triangular part (the bane of my recent existence!).

Connecting the two top plates together straightened the upper top plate (which had had a bit of a bow in it, the cause of the problems I was having with building the top part of the wall correctly). Woo hoo! The rest of the top part went together smoothly--at least compared to the three or four other times I constructed it.

I started adding sheathing...

I didn't quite finish--I ran out of day. But it is close to done!

When I returned from Sunday-night dinner, the moon on the water was breathtaking. This is the best photo I could get...

Also see:

West Wall 1

West Wall 3

West Wall 4

West Wall 5

West Wall 6

West Wall 7

West Wall 8

West Wall 9