Today I Was Rescued by a Ten Year Old

52 degrees - a beautiful day here in Southern Virginia.

Now that the roof is up I thought this would be a good day to open up the ceiling to the second floor loft.  Okay - for a moment imagine the cartoon that you saw when you where a kid where the guy is sawing the tree limb off the tree while sitting on the end of the limb.  Well, that is not exactly what happened to me today but I certainly thought about it as I was standing on the center area of the upstairs floor that I was cutting out with a circular saw.  I knew I was not cutting all the way through the joists below so it should hold my weight.  I cut through the plywood and then went downstairs to finish cutting the joists and the upper floor was now hanging by a thread.  Just the corner pieces of plywood were left to cut last so that I can control the falling of the floor.  There was a lot on my mind as I wanted to ensure that the cut was clean along the edges and I also put an eight foot 2x4 vertically over the window to protect it.  I stood over the last corner sawing away and finally the opening appears as the large plywood and two joists now cut free crashed to the floor below.

You can probably guess what happened next.  I had to yell out the dormer window for Lauren to bring me a ladder so that I could get down.  Elizabeth and Devon where in Virginia Beach for volleyball practice and if they had taken Lauren I would have been stuck upstairs until past 7:00 PM.  She setup the small ladder and I was able to get my foot on the very top step, the one that says "No Step", and make my way down.  It all worked out and I was very happy to see the tall vaulted ceiling right as you enter the tiny house.

Now I can see out the door and the upper window.

It feels like a very large space now that the ceiling has been cut away.

I stood the pieces of the floor up to remove the nails.  The joists were recycled and later placed on the outside edges of the opening.

After I cleaned up the mess I began to measure the left and right opening to fit 2x6s on the sides to support the narrow ledge above.  The opening is sixty one inches deep and about seven feet across.

The joists are now nailed into the left and right existing framing.

What a difference!

Earlier in the day I spent several hours cutting and fitting some of the plywood trim that will be necessary when I install the pressure treated 1x6 and 1x8 over this foundation to create the half timber look.  All of the sides of the house are now ready for paint and I will also be adding a large 2x10 apron that will go around the bottom that will get a routed detail on the top edge and another "V" groove toward the bottom.  More on this later.

Not very exciting but I had to glue and nail this edge trim to the existing plywood.

All of this gets painted except for the beams.

And now the penguin.  Devon and I stayed up late last night and worked on the project that she was to do all on her own.  I did my best to get her to lay out the grid pattern on a small photo of an Emperor Penguin to then be scaled up to a large model.  She did most of the cutting in the shop with the jigsaw and spent some time today painting one side after the primer that we put on last night has dried.

Still need to make feet - a stand out of hardwood.

I'm not going to get much done on the Pointed Playhouse this week - Elizabeth and I are celebrating out 20th anniversary, Devon turns 13 and I'm being forced to go on a camping trip with Devon's class next weekend.  If I have time I would like to build a "Bumper Dumper" because it shows my maturity.