How NOT to raise a wall.

Measuring the windows

Waiting.....

Here we are on the verge of September....and our new addition is still barely off the ground. We're starting to feel the panic. The goal has been to get this thing up and ready to heat by the time snow flies. And as I've stated before, the framing was supposed to be FINISHED by July.... But such is the quagmire one sets themselves up in when counting on a retired contractor that is not really asking for much monetary compensation. In return, we're kind of at the mercy of his whims...not sure when he'll be showing up. Huz and I, with help from Dea and Lo have done 90% of the work ourselves so far. And I'm still lovin it! I've always been one who's happiest when making something....art, a baby, a new meal, landscaping, construction....and I really enjoy the labor put into it. I relish a productive day of hard busy work, and the peace that comes at the end of it when you can stand back and look at what you've produced.

Sister power

....But, alas, the completion of this project is at the mercy of our contractor who has not made it a priority. And it seems every other week one of us is not available to work on it. We were in Jersey, then he was of on vacations with family, now Huz is in Washington DC for conferences for the next week...oi. As long as WE are here and the contractor actually shows up for 30 minutes to instruct us on what to do, we're good to go! We slammed out the first wall in 3 hours and the second wall took a Sunday....But actually getting him here at the house in the first place has been a problem. A lot of wasted weekends.

So imagine my surprise-chagrin, actually- when our MIA contractor calls last night and says, "Let's raise those walls!" We didn't take him too seriously. Since the biggest wall is like 2 tons, we had been planning to have friends and neighbors come up for an official Wall Raising a la the Amish if only we had a day and time to give them. But the contractor is not so good at such commitments. We knew he had his son and grandson in town and they were willing to help. And I assumed that he had a few other guys...so we figured we'd wait and see IF , WHEN and WHO showed up. I was feeling crappy, a chest cold coming on, and just wanted to go to BED. Lo and behold, he shows up after 9PM with Jr. and Jr. Jr. That's it. Huz and I felt bad about calling folks to come help since it was so last minute and late! But Dea knew that our next door neighbors were up so we asked if they wanted to help. Apparently we needed all the help we could get.

Enjoy our Fellini-esque wall raising video! I'm the one with the afro puff in the black hoodie wielding the hammer. (It's been a long recovery process for my low back so such heavy lifting is OUT for me.)
The vid is fekkin' ridiculous to watch-I almost cried like a girl at the end-but at the same time I'm SO upset that people could have gotten hurt. This was not a paid construction team...just friends helping out. I am NOT happy with the contractor's lack of judgement. And I feel HORRIBLE that I dismissed my own concerns about the situation. We figured we don't know SHIT about how all this works, so we put our trust in the guy who does. But as I look back at the last couple months, we-especially Huz-have found mistakes on the contractor's part, we've second guessed some of his ideas, really only need minimal instruction from him, need to go with our OWN instincts, and as long as I have Huz's math skills-I can DO THIS!!!!

We WILL be having a serious pow-wow on how we are going to proceed with this construction. Renting jacks to raise these walls for one thing...And we will NOT be second guessing our own instincts and logic AGAIN.