We prepare for framing, and put up a fence.

Sam has spent a lot of time recently studying the framing plans- thinking ahead, and coming up with questions to ask the architect. Framing will, most likely, start sometime later this week, and in anticipation of that, on Friday, Sam and my friend Dan snapped lines on the stem walls to ensure that the bottom plates of the new walls will be perfectly straight and parallel. This involved a lot of measuring, triangulating, and some use of the water level. After four hours of work, we had a lot of straight blue lines, like this:







They also installed a new post that will support the fence that will replace the bush Sam had to tear out in order to move the gas meter. (Linguists, have a ball parsing THAT sentence!) This required mixing some concrete, smoothing the concrete arond the base of the post, making sure the post was level, and etching romantic messages in the concrete. Ok, that last step probably wasn't strictly necessary, but Sam always does go above and beyond!












Then, this weekend, Sam installed the fence itself.



Since it was the weekend, it seemed like a good time to play with some new toys: namely a nail gun, and a screw gun.





Also since it was the weekend (and having nothing to do with construction!) it seemed like a good time to give Sioux a bath. Well, Sam and I thought so, at any rate. Sioux disagreed! :)





And this is a picture that is only tangentially related to construction, but I wanted to get it up here for posterity. This is our living room, these days. Some have noted that it's neat that the saw matches the orange in our decor! You just KNOW I'm all about "matchies"!



Today Sam was collecting bids for the lumber costs, and meeting with the architect to get some questions answered. Hopefully soon I'll have pictures of framing!