We have been at an old house (dedicated 3 years ago), fixing up the bathroom and bedroom area. Just painting. Since I worked with a home owner who also is a professional painter, I've been liking painting a lot more; he gave me some tips.

Another concrete driveway today. It's starting to get very familiar (I was going to say boring, but it's not).

We were back at the same site today. There is a class from Consumnes River College (local CC) that helps out sometimes. They are all guys in their 20's, 30's, getting trained to do construction after. The teacher said CRC has a feeder program for architecture to places like Calpoly and Berkeley. He said he did it and went to a college in Oregon for it, but dropped out.
We "plumbed" the walls, using a 2x4 (people in the South called them "tubers," but I don't think I've heard that here) to hold the wall at precisely the right spot. We also used an $800 level!!
And then we sheathed, put up 3/8 boards of osb. That's about it. CRC was fun to work with.

framing with Lutherans

Saturday was crazy! the most volunteers at one time so far.
I just cut all day, the volunteers were the ones hammering.
all the walls got put up. they brought togo's for lunch.
there were just so many people there.
justin came too, he had fun. I think I hooked him on building, haha.

At the same house today. We got our framing package delivered. The flatbed comes with it, and it's on big pipes, and the truck takes off really quick, and the wood is hanging in the air for a millisecond, and then slams on the ground. We also got 20 yards of gravel delivered, and had to shovel that around. Did more "detail" on the floorplan, before all the volunteers arrive tomorrow.
There's supposed to be about 60. It's funny how everyone shows up on the day that we put up all the walls.
I relearned about king studs, and cripples (jack studs), how to mark them. Still a lot of fun.

today we decked the floor joist/foundation, and started putting the "plates" around the perimeter, and marking off all the walls with a chalk line. I liked this last part the most, because we were using the plans to figure it out. I like all the measuring and numbers.
The homeowner was there today, she still seems pretty excited. she has a preschooler and a first grader. She's ethiopian, super nice.
otherwise a pretty typical day. some accountants from HP volunteered. It was a sunny day, but not too hot.

Two Palms

Hopefully the posts will start to be regular again. Today we had fire extinguisher training.
I missed a class on emerging cooling technologies for the west! I will just have to look into that myself.
The rest of the day was spend plumbing with J and some Intel volunteers.
The day got much better when Intel bought everyone lunch, and I got to talk a little with the home owner, a really nice guy from Belaruse (sp?). . . he talked with me and Dick about living under Communist rule.
We also tested the plumbing system after lunch. After the plumbing is up, and all the ends capped, we turn on the water from outside somehow, didn't get to observe that part, and you can hear the water rushing in, from one side of the house to the other. Kind of like rain or something.
There was one leak due to a bad crimp.

ps. this post is called "Two Palms" because the homeowner has a dream to put two palms up in the backyard when the house is done. I think this is so great!