old pistachios

So ... been a while since I've posted anything - the internet has been down for over 24 hours, limiting my ability to show-n-tell.

This is a photo of Erin trying to work while he was sick. Yes, his eyes are half-closed.

Erin made a good recovery, and a very good start on the 2x4" floor joists on Monday, getting about 2/3 of the way across the circle. On Tuesday, we continued (and finished) this task. The floor joists are 24" on center all the way across, which will hopefully make it easy for us to lay the 4x8' sheets of plywood down on top.

We also began blocking with the 2x4"s around the edge of the circle, which will give the floor a lot more support in general. You can see the blocking taking shape, and really giving the impression that we will, indeed, have a circular floor.

A note about drawing circles:

So far, we've tried many different methods for drawing a 15' radius circle on our joists, but by far the easiest has been the tape measure, which was employed yesterday for the first time. The tape has a small horizontal slit on the little metal tab, which wraps perfectly around the head of a nail, and swivels with ease. Thus, we've been using this method to swipe around the decking, holding the pencil alongside the 15' mark. Tape measure's don't stretch, sag or warp. Yahoo.

Today was a day for wrapping up a lot of loose ends again. We completed the blocking, which required an awful lot of cuts at lots of different angles. I found this to be particularly fun, marking, measuring, protractor-ing, and finally cutting, fitting and screwing. We then took the planer to the joists, making sure all surfaces will be level for the plywood. Erin got the electric planer, I, the manual. We also had to go around the circle and cut all the 2x4s off that stuck out past 15 feet using the skill saw to start the cut, and finishing it up with the sawsall.

At this point, we got hungry, and scrounged around the trailer for something to eat. A week or two ago, Mom cleaned out her bottomless snack drawer. She brought up a paper bag full of old soy jerkey, wal-mart pistachios (best before 10/2003), Salt&Pepper potato chips, and really old chocolate money pieces. Feeling desperate, and not wanting to delay our progress with another trip down town for lunch, we dug in. Then it was time for insulation.

Insulation. Yuck. I remember visiting my parents' job sites growing up we were forbidden to touch insulation. The fluffy pink piles laying around on the ground and poofing out of walls took on a poisonous sort of aura, and I still feel that way about the rigid foam insulation we're using here. Regardless of the actual toxicity, we decided to continue the rest of the insulation tomorrow once we have accquired proper eye, respiratory and skin protection, as well as a filter bag for the dust. After ripping through one 4x8' sheet of the stuff, Erin was covered in a fine glittery dusting of insulation powder and his skin was starting to itch. Besides, it was getting cold and the sun was going down!

Bill lent us his table saw to rip the insulation in to 22.5"x8' sheets.
These sheets will be custom fit between the floor joists.

This side of the deck needed a lot of work today. We'd been neglecting it -
mostly because it's the round side. But it's all caught up and looks great.

These are the flooring joists all trimmed up, planed down,
and ready to be stuffed full of insulation.

We got a bit of a late start today, which was fine because we were having delicious danishes and coffee with Dad downtown. We promise to skip the danishes tomorrow, and get straight to work!