10 days down.

(My new work boots.)

I worked in construction once before.  Some of you might not know that- It was during the summer, between my sophomore year of college and junior year, and also the following winter.  I worked as an electrical helper at DIA Beacon.  I had to be up at 430 in the morning in order to drive up to Beacon from Monroe (about a 35 minute drive) at which point the foreman would just scream at me and push me around all day long, everyday.  I learned a lot about construction, and grew in my position during the time that I was there, but I HATED getting up that early, and HATED having a boss who thought he was better than me just because I was a kid.
This experience, on the other hand, is the complete opposite.  I wake up early because I want to get started, but not TOO early, and considering Joe is the closest thing I have to a boss, that pressure is non existent.  We have been working very well together, doing a lot of critical thinking along the way and producing quality work with few mistakes because we are both patient enough to take out 10 nails by hand if a board isn't up just right and do it again. Each day I learn a handful of new things and each time I find a hand tool that is very useful,  I purchase one of my own.  (at some point Ill probably put up a post about critical tools to have for a basic renovation... but I'm not quite there yet)
My previous experience working with electric has actually proved useful- we had to cut about 10 runs of wire in the attic in order to open up the ceiling and I was able to rewire almost everything (temporarily) so as to prevent losing power in most of the upstairs of the house.

Anyway- Im really enjoying this work and was reminded today by my friend Mike (Some of you know him as Dus) that this experience is the perfect way to start out my adventure and get back to the roots of why I got into architecture in the first place, because Jesse Favia and I used to look forward each day to waking up and working on our tree house- it was the creativity along with the physical work that I loved.  Nothing like seeing the results of your hard work right there in front of you at the end of each day.

Here are a few pics:

This was earlier in the week- before the framing, ceiling, or electric came out 

Good Bye old walls (I pulled all these out while Joe was out buying a framing nail gun.  I have no idea how they built house years ago without a compressor and a nail gun... hammering all these nails would have sucked the life right out of me.

Clearing insulation to start framing out the new ceiling from the attic... Joe should have had on his mask- hence the pleasant facial expression from breathing in the fiberglass.  Yum

Good bye ceiling.  Hello (freezing cold) attic

Dennis does electric 101 (black to black and white to white...)

Working out the details of the new ceiling

When you are framing there are two primary positions- the nail guy (joe) and the cut guy (me) he calls down to me "I need a 2x4 cut at 48 1/8"... so I mark it with my tape measure, draw a straight line with my framing triangle, then use that saw in front of me to cut it and pass it up to him...

I think this was at the end of the day on Wednesday or Thursday- we were pretty psyched about our progress.  I told Joe that I wanted to go get some beers and drink them while admiring our work.  We went downstairs instead, but I came back up later to take a quick look at how far we had come

A corner detail- for those who care to see it.

I nailed up some additional support for the roof joists, nothing like leaning in over open space with a huge nail gun shooting 3.5" nails into lumber.

(side note- Joe mentioned that in all the houses he has built, the clients always get most excited when they see the roof go up- for some reason, a roof, by creating an outline of the space, must create the illusion that there has been some serious progress... when in actuality, this was probably one of the easiest, and fastest parts yet...after the roof, says joe, the work slows down tremendously)

This is what the space will look like tomorrow morning when we get started at 8am... 6 hours and 15 minutes from now (I better get to bed) the temperature will be about 40 degrees, but at least we've got it set up now so with one plug we turn on the upper and lower work lights and a little clock radio... wish us luck with week two.

Some pics of food from dinner tonight- A few times now I have taken out my camera at the dinner table.  Each time, Donna, Joe's Mom, kind of laughs that I am taking pictures of her food- I don't know whether it is how good the food is or how well she presents everything, but I just cant resisit.  I mean, from her food to her folded laundry- I thought I was a perfectionist- now I know where Joe gets it from!  Those of you who know me best know how much I appreciate organization, AND good food.

Until next time.