Making changes on the fly (Day 83 of 273)

Well, I don't know how people can build (or have a house built) for them without being on the site at least several days a week. Almost daily, we need to make decisions about door placements, window dimensions, and other other framing details. For example, this morning (Monday) we needed to decide on the placement of the washer and dryer in the Laundry Room. No biggie, but we noticed that Darlene (jr. architect with Richard Berg) had placed the door in the center of the end wall. Now that seems appropriate, but with an 8-ft-wide room and a 3-ft wide door, you only have 5 ft to work with. The washer and dryers are about 30" deep, but set 4-6" out from the wall. So you really need to have about 36" on one side of door to accommodate these appliances. However, with the door in the center you only have about 30" on each side. Oops. So we resized the door to 30" (standard bedroom size) and moved it off center. That way we have 36" on the outer-wall side and about 24" on the inner wall side. Problem solved, except Gary built this wall last Friday. So, he'll take the carpenter's best friend (a Sazsall) and cut the door framing out, move it over, and renail it. Its probably an hour job, which he says he won't charge us for (keep the cookies coming Nancy). Otherwise we'd enter the realm of "Change Orders", also known as screwups you pay extra for. The picture below is of the framing downstairs showing placement of a large beam over the fireplace (see thru, between the den and living room). This beam only weighed about 300 pounds, so they just lifted it into place. The crane comes next week for the heavy lifting.

We also needed to size of the owner-built window (and shoji screens) between the bedroom and sunroom. When we saw the room layout on Friday we also decided to move enlarge the living room by 2 ft at the expense of the den. This actually simplified some framing and fireplace details. While we were at it, we enlarged the linen closet in the guest bathroom, so that it is a reasonable size if and when we convert it to a shower for the sauna. Best to plan this stuff ahead, that way remodeling will be much simpler. We'll stub in a floor drain and water supply at the same time, then just drywall over it for now.

Today the upper floor package should arrive from Carls. This includes about 30 floor joists, all the framing timber and some massive Versalam beams. The one that extends above the fireplace and supports the upstairs bedroom is 6"x16" and about 24 ft long. Looks like there might be a problem moving it around and lifting it into place. I put an order in for a sky crane and space hook. Stayed tuned.

THE BLIND CARPENTER

A blind carpenter walks into a lumber mill and shouts out, "I am a blind carpenter and I need a job."

The foreman walks over to the blind carpenter and says, "If you're blind, how can you work in a lumber yard?"

The blind carpenter says, "I can tell any piece of lumber by it's smell."

The foreman says "O.K. I'll give you a test and if you pass the test, you've got a job."

The foreman takes the carpenter over to a table and says, "I will put some lumber on a table in front of you and you tell me what it is."

The foreman then puts a piece of lumber on the table and says, "Ready!"

The carpenter bends over and takes a deep sniff moving his head from one side to the other. He says "That's a number two pine, two by four, eight foot long."

The foreman says, "Duh! That's right, but pine is easy to tell by the smell and I think you guessed the rest. Here's another piece of lumber for you to identify."

The foreman puts a piece of lumber on the table and says, "Ready!"

The blind carpenter bends over and takes a deep sniff moving his head from one side to the other and says, "This is a tough one, please turn it over so I can smell the other side."

The foreman does this and says "Ready!"

The carpenter takes another deep sniff moving his head from side to side. He then says, "That's a clear heart redwood, four by four, six foot long."

The foreman is amazed and says "That's right, but I still think you're just lucky and still guessing. If you get this one right you got a job."

The foreman then goes into the office and asks his secretary to help him stump the blind carpenter by taking off all of her clothes and laying down on the table. She takes off her clothes walks out of the office and lays face down on the table. The foreman says, "Ready!"

The blind carpenter takes a deep sniff moving his head from side to side. He looks puzzled and takes another sniff and says, "This also is a tough one, please turn it over so I can smell the other side."

The foreman gestures with his hand to the secretary, she rolls over, and the foreman says, "Ready!"

The blind carpenter moves his head from side to side again looking puzzled. He sniffs one more time, looks surprised, and says, "I got it. That's a shit house door off a tuna boat."

He got the job.