Two and a Half Walls Up

My friend, Skeeter.

82 degrees and a little humid.  Mosquito count = 3 per cubic yard.

Today was fairly productive.  I got up early and ate a half bowl of cereal, got some coffee in me and began work on the house.  The first order of business was to raise the far wall that has been sitting flat after assembly the day before.  I first tacked the bottom plate of the wall to act as a hinge so that it did not fall off the end and into the dirt.  A pulley was tied to rope around some small tree branches on the far side and I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law and wife to help lift.  Safety was stressed and I told them that my estimation was that the entire wall weighed 250 pounds, which was probably well under the actual weight.  I counted 3.5 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, which weigh about 57 pounds each and then about 15 2x4 sticks.  That house wrap sure put it over 300 pounds as it felt very heavy.  Two sticks of 2x4 were nailed to the ends to act as braces and this helped take the weight off of us as we rested mid lift.  Once the wall was up I used a small sledge hammer to convince the wall to move down a little to be aligned with the edge of the floor and began nailing the wall into place.  Pictures were taken to celebrate the moment.

Checking my work...

Say ello to my lil fren...

Next, I worked on the assembly of the small end wall.  I say small now but later had to lift the wall by myself after I nailed the sheathing on.  I was very happy and surprised when I put a level to all of my walls and saw that everything was perfectly level and square.  That was the payoff for the time put in to get the floor level and square.

One sheet of sheathing is down and I'm ready to nail down the other.

Laying out the window king studs and cripple locations.

Once the end wall was up I used a reciprocating saw to cut out the sheathing inside the small window and later used a router to get the edges of the plywood to be flush with the studs, which may not be necessary in framing but this is what I would do for other woodworking projects.  The girls got home from school and took a few pictures of this step.

I painted the outside of this wall with primer / sealer and then laid out the top and bottom plates and studs for the third wall.  Raising this wall was a little easier this time because I decided to sheath it once the studs were in a vertical position.  I got the wall up and nailed to the floor and the end wall.

Third wall up and here comes the rain.

It was almost dinner time by now and I heard high winds blow through the tree tops and saw a dark cloud front coming in from the west.  The temperature was in the 80's all week and a cold front was expected to hit the east coast and we would see highs in the lower 60's for a while.  I loaded up all the tools in the wheel barrow, ran everything into the garage and covered what I could with tarps.