4 September 2010

Installed the 2 x 10 pressure treated rim joists on the north and south end beams, then sledge hammered those two beams into a close approximation of their correct positions… which didn’t make the yellow jackets any too happy. Then Zook and I used the van’s screw jack to raise each end of the four middle beams (so that I wouldn’t hit the concrete columns when cutting them off) and chain sawed them to a semblance of their correct length.  Zook did the jacking, then wisely stood far away taking pictures while I did the cutting. By the time I finished trimming the 12th beam end, Zook pronounced me ready to carve a wooden bear. Then we sledge hammered the middle beams parallel to the end beams as best we could… which really, really didn’t make the yellow jackets happy. Perry brought over his deep socket ratchet set (mine being, inevitably, in Virginia), so that we could tighten the J-bolt nuts, guaranteeing that the beams will never come off the concrete columns, even in a Category 5 hurricane. While performing that job, I had to move a loose sheet of Advantech out of the way… and inadvertently moved it off of the beam that was holding it up. Most fortunately, Zook and Perry were not underneath when the sheet went crashing to the cellar floor. Somewhat less fortunately, I was leaning heavily on the sheet when it exited southwards. With blazingly fast reflexes I hurled myself onto another beam... landing hard enough that a gentleman really should propose marriage after such an encounter. The resulting cuts and bruises will, I’m sure, be gone within a week or two.