Up and At ‘Em

Saturday morning we were “up and at ’em” early.  ‘Early’ being a relative term for the country, but as the ‘we‘ included Number Two Son and The Teen, I believe any parent would declare it to have been ‘early’.  The nail gun was firing away before 9 am on Number Two Son’s day off.  Number Two usually goes in to work at 5 or 6 in the morning, so technically he did still get to sleep in.  Did you notice the word, ‘nail gun’.  Yes, this day’s work promised to be fun!

The Teen was up early, because she had been warned that ‘we’ were starting early in the attic and that ‘we’ were all helping.  The current access to the attic is through her bedroom, so between the traffic and the nail gun, ‘we’ were going to be pretty hard to ignore.  She also had a very specific job to do and for this she too needed to be ‘up and at ’em’.

Fully fueled, our goal was to secure the new rim joist, install the joist hangers and hang the floor joists.  (All joist words are fancy new terms for me and I am quite proud of my continuing education).  We are anxious to get the sub floor down in the space because the old chimney leak caused there to be a soot everywhere and just working in the space is dirty, very, very dirty.  Also, our gymnastic abilities of being able to work while balancing on beams has been well tested and the odds are no longer in our favor, so it is just a matter of time before one of us does go, WHOOPS, and puts a hole through the ceiling into the kitchen.  With a sub floor down, the whole space will be cleaner and we’ll have a floor to walk around on while we continue our attic remodeling project.

It was a very rewarding morning as we saw the floor structure come to life.  Number Two and I were a neophyte team installing the hangers across the room.  We work well together and were careful, diligent and consistent as each hanger, somehow had just a slight right tilt to it.  We offered to redo them, but luckily they were declared ‘good enough’ by My Loving Spouse Construction Engineer and we forged ahead, with hanging the joists, which was almost as much fun as running the nail gun.  Watching the flooring come together and the making of the room was almost magical, completing this stage, all before lunch!