All Work and No Play

You can't just work all the time. Especially,  now that we are semi-retired. The grand daughters make sure Bill takes time out of work to have some fun!

 No, Mallory is not driving it herself, just waiting for Pa to get aboard.

This is the kids 4 Wheeler, he maybe a little big for it but that makes no difference to those three.

Bill Keeps Plugging Away

Almost every day Bill is working on the office for us. I seem to have a lot of stuff to do that doesn't involve building. I'm working just not with him.

 Time to add the closet to the office. It is going to bump into the Ell of the Trophy Room. The HVAC system will go on top of the closet. Our heat and air guys will have lots of room to work and bright lights. They will even have a door to go in. They will need a ladder to get to the door but that shouldn't happen very often.















First thing I  had to do was make room in the Ell for the building to happen. Of course, you can't just clear the exact space you need. You need room to work around. This was where all the kid toys and games were being stored. It will be like Christmas when the kids come over to play and they get to see all their toys.

 

We don't know what the holes in the wall were for but they decided where the door will be going.  

Next came the framing. Bill discovered that the ceiling joists the previous owner had put in had sagged half an inch over time. Once again we are reusing the existing lumber as much as possible. Lots of room for office stuff plus this will house our safe and guns. Away from little hands. This room will also be made fire retardant.

Doorway from the office into the closet.

 

Move Some Air

Since our office won't be used on a daily basis now; we will keep it warmer or cooler than needed depending on the season. When I go in to work though, I don't want to wear a sweater in the winter or perspire in the summer. Our heat and air guy, Chuck, is taking care of me.

This office is +/- 400 square feet. We have one return air duct which is very important and 4, yes 4, vents. When I walk in and flip the thermostat where I want it; by the time the computer is up and running I will be the right temperature.That's the way to have your HVAC system work.

Job Transfer

With the sale of the rock yard we have moved our offices to the house. We also needed to do a job relocate for a very important part of our business.

Christel was working for us at the time of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. She fell in love with one of the icons of the Olympics, the  Inukshuk. She had her Dad make one for her since he made her half Canadian.

An Inukshuk is a man made stone landmark used by the Inuit of the Artic region of North America. It marked "good things ahead." Such as good hunting and safe passage.

 Used the Wheel Loader on the last day it was available to us to set the body rock. It was a little too big for us to move ourselves.

Our rock man had to come home with us. We just got him set up and he is welcoming everyone who comes to visit.

Another You Tube Visit

We have never built cove ceilings before. So off to You Tube to watch the videos and learn a new skill.

The framing is now ready for the beautiful curve to be added.

All the videos described using sheet rock. Bill wants to use Luan. Which is a very thin wood.

 He is using the lawnmower trailer as his work space for cutting the wood.

 After cutting the wood to the shape  needed.We soak the wood so it will bend. It is all straight wood except the corners and he has to do one of his fancy cuts so they fit together correctly.

It is gong to be so pretty when we get all the room done.

Running Out of Time

We only have three days before the rock yard closing. We have to have the equipment back before closing and we have a long list of projects that will be much  much easier to do with equipment. Today we got some items knocked off the list.
 
This is the peninsula in the pond. The pond isn't fixed yet; but, it will be one day. This is a job we probably won't be able to do. Will have to hire out. We have to wait for the pond to dry up again.

We ringed this area with red rock, filled it in with Decomposed Granite and put in a rock bench. Can't wait to sit there and watch the fish leap out of the water and the ducks to swim around. Used the Wheel Loader's forks and bucket for t his project.

View from pond level. When completely full the water should come to about 18 inches below the rocks.

When we had the hill cut out for the retaining wall and drive  the dirt guys took many many trucks of clay to the back side of the pond. This is what will be used to seal the bottom. All those dump trucks left huge ruts on the top of the dam. We brought home a load of top soil, then used the bucket on the Wheel Loader to take it to where we needed it and then it became shovel and rake. Much easier since we didn't have to shovel it into a trailer to take it over. We still need one more truck of soil to finish it. One of our competitors wants our customer and vendor lists so I think he can pay us in dirt.

We also used the soil to level out the race track. The bucket on the Wheel Loader is great for leveling.

Now it is time for these old bodies to have lunch and a rest before starting the round of heavy equipment projects.

Red Barn

Mom and Dad had three outbuildings on the farm. We want to take down one of them. It has a raised floor so critters get under it and most renters won't need three storage buildings.


We have always called this one the Red Barn.

Since the Rock Yard has sold we now have time to go to the farm and tear the building down. We need to do this in the summer heat because we still have access to the yard delivery truck to bring the building to our place. Bill went up one day and numbered everything so we can remember how to put it back together. The next day I went up with him and we started taking it down. First the roof and then the walls. We kept the walls screwed together as much as we could.


Unbelievably, we only found one skeleton  under the floor. A nice size opossum. The tenant was surprised we didn't find snakes. They would see Bull Snakes going under the building a lot. We were making enough noise anything living would have run.

Put everything on the flat bed delivery truck and brought it home.


This side had the metal stacked on it

This side had the wood.

Coming home we were stopped because a police officer who assumed we were over weight, not realizing this was all aluminum. He thought one tire looked low and it was because of weight. Really I think he just wanted to know what we were doing. Wyatt was with is on this trip so he got to learn all about roadside checks with commercial trucks. The officer puts portable scales under each of the tires and weighs how much weight is on each axle to see if you are over weight. Then the walk around where you have to show that the equipment works. It is an hour out of your day.

Once we got home the forklift just reversed the loading process and got everything off the truck.

Moving Windows

Time to move the big front window in to the office. This is the first week of August, very hot, very humid, just down right sticky.

Tiffany and Wyatt came over to help. We knew I would not be able to move or hold this size of window myself.

Off we go. Bill on one end Tiffany on the other and Wyatt and I in the middle.

 Oops!! Sweaty hands and glass do not work well together. Tiffany and I are holding the window waiting for Bill to get a hammer to knock off some wood packing strips we hadn't noticed until we lifted it off the floor. All of a sudden you hear both of us yelling, "It's going! Just let it go." Never try to stop something like this from falling. You take the chance of you following it and getting hurt. Everything can be fixed or replaced.

 Poor Tiffany even with letting go her hand got sliced on the broken glass. After the office is finished we will call the window company they will come out, take measurements and bring out a replacement pane.We still have one pane of glass so we are weathertight.

 This is a BIG window..

Check out the view we will have from our office. Think we will get any work done? The two side windows slide open for fresh air.

Leverage

With the right kind of leverage you can move mountains, build pyramids, or pull nails. We are reusing all the lumber from the previous owners walls in the office. Just taking them down and moving them back against the exterior walls.As Bill pulls the walls down my  job is to remove all the nails I am strong enough to pull out. We save the nails and will then take them down to the scrap metal yard and sell them for recycling. We won't make gas money,  unless we wait until the end of construction, but the environment will benefit greatly.

These are the nails that need to come out. Pound them back through the wood first.

 Then using a little leverage out they come. Ready to be melted down and form into new metal uses.

What a Find

Darrick talks with everyone he comes across. This is one of the reasons he is so good at his job. He met a new neighbor and calls us saying the guy has a door he needs to get rid of. Sure we'll take it., our renthouses are always in need of doors.

Oh no, this door is going from the Trophy Room into the office. Beautiful heavy wood and a cool design. I just need to refinish the wood.

Doesn't that look like something that goes into a Big Game Trophy Room?

Don't Forget

Bill is ready to start putting sheet rock up in the office. Uh, Bill what about my vacuum system. Oh yeah, guess we need to run the pipes in the walls for that don't we. Headed out to pick up the pipes and found out they need to be ordered. Doesn't take long to get them. He just wrote himself a big note to remember.

It Works

We have brought all the rock home to rock the exterior of the house. We have pallets and pallets of Latte Swirl rock stacked everywhere. Bill has discovered that they provide wonderful work surfaces.

 Today this one is holding the chop saw.

It's Too Hot to Build

August in Oklahoma, building in an enclosed metal building. Not a recipe for enjoyment. Bill, being ever ingenious, came up with a great idea.

He has a swamp cooler.













He has two oscillating fans.

 Cut out the window, covered it with wood to stop the heat from the west sun from coming in and any rain we might get.

Then thinking outside the box. Added two window units. Instant cool!

We look pretty red neck on the outside but it's the inside that counts/


 It is twenty degrees cooler in the office area from the rest of the West Wing.

Grooming the Yard

The previous owners had unusual living arrangements. They were divorced; he lived in the Residence in a one bedroom apartment and she lived down the hill in a trailer house. They  shared a drive, mailbox and water well. We did not buy the trailer so they had to move it out. Unfortunately, we did this part of the sale with a handshake and they took advantage of us. Meaning they did not take any of the junk and left ruts in the meadow.


Took advantage of having the Wheel Loader home, took out the huge slabs of concrete that were under the trailer. Smoothed out the area and put a layer of top soil over it all.

Mow we have more usable yard.

Redesigning Space

The office is being built in a space we are redesigning. Walls are being torn down and put back up 6 inches farther back, ceiling is being raised 2 feet, electrical wiring is being pulled and rerun 10 inches away. The space will be incredible when we are finished. These little changes are taking two dark work rooms and making them into a bright office for us.

This is one of the walls we are moving back. The existing wall is already down ready for the studs to go back up just back against the exterior wall.

Bill is raising the ceiling two feet. From 7 feet to 9 feet. He is adding studs above the metal beam that runs around the building. This would be why the previous owner used 7 foot ceilings. The beam is at 7 feet. Bill figured out how to build around it.

This wall used to go all the way across and made this space into two rooms. We opened the sides and our desks will be on either side of the wall. In the same room but not right next to each other.