the real stairway to heaven

It doesn't lead to anywhere but up yet, but the stairs are in. We finished them on...Saturday the 8th of September. It took a couple of days to get them sorted out. Roy came over on Thursday to help us properly take the measurements and showed us how to properly scribe the stairs, then we cut them out after he left. To make the stringers, you get your measurements for the rise and run, and essentially jiggle your division until you reach the right number of treads for the space you need to stretch the staircase. It's more difficult than it sounds for beginners like us, but part of the beauty of doing something with someone who not only knows their field well, but also knows it well enough to communicate the essence of it simply and effectively, is that you suddenly realize that it's not as difficult as it seems. Nor is it as easy! Anyway, we cut out the templates, and then took a bit of time to cut all the risers and treads and get them into place. The stairs you see here are temporary stairs. One of the few areas that code is strict in Belfast is with stair treads. No nosing can be sticking out. So our final step with the stairs before occupancy inspection will be to put a clamshell nosing on the edge of the stairs where you can see a gap between the riser and the tread.

In other news...we got rained out Sunday afternoon and yesterday, and today is rainy, too, but we're going to head to Belfast anyway. It's not raining most of the day and we have a lot to do. We are working to plywood the basement, cutting out the windows as we go. We put in an order for our windows to get a final on the cost (it's expensive, now to determine exactly what the damage will be). We also talked with Roy about having the roof done by his son's contracting company. It's really high up there, and we have decided to use trusses instead of stick building the roof. The heights are a bit much for Shawn, and I don't think that I can be exceptionally effective up there either, especially if my job is to hand up sheets of plywood or 16 foot pieces of metal roofing. :-) It's been a tremendous relief to us to decide and have that part done. Roy was telling us how they set up staging for roof work, by setting up scaffolding all the way around the area, which provides about 6 feet of working space for the builders, along with a back support, so the illusion of not being up in the air is created, while also providing safety and a good working space. A little easier for them than us. We will continue to finish off the second floor, though the walls we build for the second floor we're going to build in 32 foot sections on the long side, and then Roy and his son and a nephew are going to come by one afternoon and help us raise them. Roy suggested this would be helpful to do, since it will keep the wall perfectly straight and that will help with siding later on (we're having that done, too).

That's all the news from here. It felt very very strange to stay home yesterday. We worked something like 35 days straight. It left us at a loss! We both missed the work! But it would be untrue to say that it wasn't nice to sleep (UNTIL NINE!!!!!) in and have time to make bread and do some things that have fallen to the wayside this last month. Now we have lots of bread, plenty of rest under our belts, and more work to do ahead of us. Two weeks till the Common Ground Fair. Check out the details at www.mofga.com - we are really excited and taking three days off to attend each day of the fair!

Bye!