Off the Ground

"If I was a gambler, tell you what I'd do. I'd quit all of my gamblin' and I'd work on a building, too. I'm a' working on a building..."

After four days at lower elevations, we reconvene at the home site at 1800 feet to build upwards. Our concrete footers are still fastened to the lava rock, and still level, so we may proceed. The first task is to place three 4 x 12 x 20 foot beams on top of 4 x 4 posts, standing on top of the concrete footers. This means that two people hold up a beam at level, and try not to have a hernia while the third measures and cuts posts.




Sadly, it's not possible for me to photograph many of the action shots of this project, because due to the limited workforce on-site, if it's an action-packed moment, I'm usually required to be part of it. So if anyone would like to come out and volunteer to be a full-time photographer, it would certainly increase they dynamic qualities of this blog. Until then, you'll have to settle for a lot of before-and-afters.
You'll just have to take my word for it, that with exceedingly great effort, we get the center beam up and level and brace it with boards stuck into the dirt and tacked to the beam.






My dad nails in hardware to secure the beam to the post. Once we have two beams up, we tack in a cross board to brace them together.




And then, we have all three beams up.




I don't know if I mentioned it, but it's really really wet on the Hilo side of Hawai'i. Especially when you're the one riding on the back of the truck.




The next day, we nail 2 x 6 x 10 foot boards together to make cross-beams (I'm sure I'm not using the proper carpentry lingo for any of these things, but nobody has told me the right ones). We place these "cross beams" atop the beams and lay strings to make sure the ends are even.




Repeat every sixteen inches. Look off into the distance every so often and think about things.




Sometimes a low-end digital camera will mess up and take really cool abstract pictures.







On Sunday Dan's friend Keko (Hawai'ian for monkey) came out to help.




Born and raised in Puna, Keko brings a salty sense of humor and a tremendous spark of energy, as well as a darling little bulldog puppy Bouncer, whose role is to guard the wood blocks. He's well-suited for the work, but has a tendency to sleep on the job.




Our mission is to put sixteen inch blocks inbetween the cross beams for support. One row in the center,






one along each of the beams, and two more inbetween.








Voila. Perty, ain't it?




Now, we nail down the floor. 3/4 inch sanded plywood.






Before we hammer in hundreds of nails, we must pause for a late lunch of roasted chicken and tamales, while Kiave seeks a path to mount the forbidden platform.




At the end of the day, consider and peruse the lovely floor.







Our work for the weekend is finished. We are five feet off the ground, and feeling pretty good about ourselves. What we have now would be a beautiful stage. Anyone want to mount a Hawai'ian jungle production of A Midsummer Night's Dream?