Bringing in the Sheaths

Bringing in the Sheaths

And then it was time for the sheathing. This. Was. Hard. Work. And it was HOT. In fact, it took so much focus and muscle that we unfortunately failed to get pictures or video. There was just no good time to stop. I doubt John Deere would appreciate us posting images anyway, because the process involved Kevin balancing the “sheaths” (4’ x 8’ sheets of OSB) on clamps mounted to planks braced to the forks of the tractor, advancing the tractor and raising the forks as high as they would go, moving the boards up the wall as far as possible, then parking the tractor and standing on the forks and hoisting the boards high up over his head. Meanwhile, Sue waited on the inside on the second story atop a ladder to hold the tops of the sheathing in place while Kevin nailed them to the studs. Then Kevin would trade places on the ladder and lean over the edge (carefully) to nail in the parts he couldn’t reach from the forks. It was another Herculean feat by Kevin, but Sue also got quite a workout going up and down the ladder and handing the pneumatic nailer and the framing hammer up to Kevin repeatedly about a million times. Did we mention it was extremely hot? And humid?

But we finally got it all up there–without anyone getting seriously hurt or any marriages breaking down completely. And it looked like this:

It was Kevin’s ingenious idea not to frame in or sheath over the window on the top left so we would have an opening for the drywall to come through on the lift. Eventually. When we get to that point. Which will be quite awhile, so that was really forward thinking. (Also, notice those roof trusses lying menacingly in the foreground, haunting our thoughts of how we will get them back up–this time on top of a second story.) Stay tuned for future posts.

But we did cut out the rest of the windows.

Poof! A window!

And when we got all the windows cut out, it looked like this:

Bringing in the sheaths, bringing in the sheaths,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaths;
Bringing in the sheaths, bringing in the sheaths,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaths.