July 10th - Flooring and north wall

A much more satisfying day. Jack and I were on site first, and had the power run out and saws set up by the time Mal and Melvin arrived. Jack set about cutting a shed-load of studs for all the upstairs external walls, while the rest of us installed the first of the four big (6” x 6”) Douglas fir posts to support the main beam. Pretty slick operation, once again seamlessly directed by Mal. From there we moved upstairs and started the flooring. Mal and I spent the next few hours on this, and the other two fitted the rest of the joist hangers - a tedious and slow job. Boo was on site, as always, and for a few hours before lunch he was joined by my three boys. They’re drawn like a magnet to the scaffold inside the house, which is terribly dangerous, with open floor-joists below. To divert them, I had Jack build a scaffold climbing-frame outside, which occupied them for a while until Oscar took a nasty fall. Erring on the side of caution, they all went off to throw rocks at each other.
By mid-afternoon we’d knocked off all the flooring we could do without the big floor-joists, which I have been promised will arrive tomorrow from Rembrand Timber. They’re costing me £150 more there than the quote I had from Doves, but it doesn’t look likely that Doves will deliver any time soon, and I can’t afford to have the job held up any longer.
We all got cracking on building the frames for the last two sections of the north wall and sheeting them with OSB. I managed to split my thumb open yet again with a hammer. Horribly painful, but I knew from last time tht it soon subsides, and so it did. Much messier this time, with plenty of blood (or “claret”, as Mal calls it) spilt on my nice new floor! Walls finished, erected and braced by about 5pm, when Mal, Melvin and Boo left and Jack and I stayed behind to paint the floor to protect it from rain until the roof goes on. Jack's fitted perfectly into the team, picking up on jobs to do without being asked, and using the tools with much more assurance than yesterday. A quick learner!
Mal and Melvin off tomorrow, so Jack and I will spend just a few hours there. I need to prepare for a two-day trip to Lincolnshire to drum up some work.

First floor 100707