July 17th, 2007
Framed
2007-07-15. The roof framing is almost finished, giving us a good feel for the final size of the garden house.
During my three weeks in England, I was just as anxious as some of you to know what progress was being made on the garden house. We had expected it to be finished before we went on vacation. When it wasn’t, we were assured that it would be finished before our return. However, rain delays have slowed progress; it’s been raining since we began the project. It rained the whole time we were gone. And it’s forecast to rain this week.
We had a bit of a snafu the week before we left so I left house and garden with an uneasy mind made more anxious. The framing for the screened walls turned out differently than we expected and we had to stop work and come up with an alternate solution. All worked out in the end but the misdirection left me with the apprehension that I wouldn’t be able to catch any last minute design changes if I was thousands of miles away. Ivan is a bit less forthcoming in communicating changes in his implementation strategy than I’m comfortable with.
As it turns out it rained quite a bit while I was away and very little was done in my absence. Before JQS went off on his road trip, he reported nothing had changed that he could see. On the day before AJM was to return, I got an email from Ivan saying that they had tripped the circuit breaker doing the welding and since the subpanel is inside, work had stopped.
AJM sorted that out on his return. So during my last week in England, most of the roof got framed. I was only slightly disappointed not to have the house all finished when I returned. I much prefer to keep an eye on the progress. You can call me a control freak (many have). But this is a damn expensive project (for the likes of us) and I want it to turn out the way I want it to turn out.
by M Sinclair Stevens
July 17th, 2007
Wanting to be there during the building process doesn’t make you a control freak, M – everyone I know who’s ever built something big will advise you to be there as much as possible. Besides, how else can you take photos and show them to us?
The rain was so unprecedented – maybe it’s a good thing the house sort of settled for a while before the next stage? It looks great so far.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
July 18th, 2007
I also don’t blame you for wanting to be there while the garden house is being built, just in case. It looks like it is coming along quite well.
July 22nd, 2007
I would want to be there to oversee the whole building process too. So it’s probably good that not much got done while you were away.
I sometimes suspect that when anyone is doing any project for me I’m best off doubling whatever estimate they give me for a time of completion. How frustrating!
I’m glad for the rain. I just wish I already had my rainwater collection system. I figure by the time I get one installed, it will stop raining. — mss