Scaffolding and Blogging

I'm back at The Painted Lady in Rogers City, sipping a latte and writing this post.  Right now blogging is my primary activity around the house.  Of course, I'm also making some decisions, such as electing to use R.J.'s white oak for flooring.  For instance, a few minutes ago Kyle called about the first order for materials to be shipped up from Grand Haven.  The Anderson windows have to be ordered, and I reminded Kyle that they must be glazed with Cardinal LoE-179 glass.  This glazing lacks the "protective film" designed to keep sunlight from penetrating the structure and fading the chintz on one's sofa.  However, for the purposes of passive solar heating, preventing UV penetration is exactly what you don't want!  Anderson must certify that the windows are correctly glazed, or I will turn back the shipment.

Wednesday was a breezy day along the Huron shore.  A strong wind from the northeast whipped up whitecaps on the lake.  So strong was it blowing that I had to lean against a tree to steady the camera for the shot below.  Despite lowering clouds we had no rain.

Huron's breezy shore on Wednesday at the New Light park.

The masons are making steady progress.  By yesterday afternoon the lakeside corners were up to 8 feet, and Jim's crew is now working on scaffolding.  My basement is starting to look like a basement!

The basement at 4:30 yesterday, with scaffolding along the lake side of the basement.  The "cut out" area in the right foreground is where my screened porch will be.

I noticed that every few feet the masons have left breaks in the mortar between courses of block.  I couldn't figure out what these were for.  Then, yesterday, I looked over the scaffolding system and found the answer.  A flange on one end of a steel bar fits into this space, and the opposite end of the bar rests on stacked cement blocks.  These spaced bars support the wood planks which allow the masons to work on the upper courses of block — a simple but clearly effective scaffolding system.  The spaces will be filled in when the upper work is finished.  I find the cleverness of R.J. and Jim's crew fascinating!  I'm also reminded that Winston Churchill took up masonry as a way of dealing with the stress of running an empire at war.

These breaks in the mortar are part of the scaffolding system.

The metal bars, poked into the wall on one side, sitting on stacked blocks on the other, support the planks on which the mason's do the upper work.

Nancy, one of my former parishioners, sent an e-mail today saying that she is a regular reader of this blog.  Karen, web master at St. Michael's is also a regular reader.  I'm glad some folks are find this "house diary"interesting.  For me it has been a good way to reflect on the process of building the house, to ventilate some of the frustrations that go along with a construction project, and to keep in touch with friends.  But I should also note that this effort would be much more difficult, if not impossible, without my doughy MacBook, a gift from the good folks at St. Michael's... the encouragement of Brian, my Angel of Technology, who convinced me I could master the mysteries of software... and my initial experiments with blogging at St. John's. •••