Day 2 build - Cats & dogs II

...Well, to be honest the rains had subsided by the time Claudia and I got up to the building site. Ground was a bit soggy and sticky, so my office shoes are a horror. Shall have to hide them under the desk for the rest of the day; and bash away on this Blog.

View to the west

So... the concrete 'roof' of the ground floor is in place, as is most of the upper floor's structure, including the main inverted Vs to mark the general shape of the roof. Just missing the roof beams themselves. As ever, the windows are already installed in the upper floor and (where they open) are fully functioning. They've even installed a temporary stairs, which was nice of them.

Watching the workmen drilling holes, bolting bolts and nailing nails, I could see that the upper structure is a far more complicated beast than the ground floor. Just about everything's pre-cut at a slopey angle to take into account the slopey roof. So installing even one lickle piece up there seems to be a matter of adjust adjust adjust until everything lines up, followed by yet another round of adjustments. Still impressive, but not the massive seven league boots sort of progress of yesterday which was literally a drag 'n' drop 'n' bolt-it-together process.

View to the south

Yes, the roof is still missing, but what do yer want after only a day and a half of construction. Even the largest villageful of Amish would have trouble raising a barn so quickly. Not sure what'll be the status by the end of day, but upper structure plus roof beams complete looks very feasible. Imagine tomorrow's more a day of roof tiling. To be quite honest, today's rains were messy, and very possibly inconvenient, but snow would be a show-stopper. And the snow-line looked to be down to about 1,000 metres... and the house is at 726m. Oo-err.

View to the north

And how did we feel? Well, yesterday was exciting because we saw a lot of tangible progress. However, it's hard to empathise with a building consisting of a few walls and open to fresh air above. Today we saw the general shape and form of our new house, and how it's going to fit into the surroundings. And that was truly a moment to cherish. Reality arrived softly, and I can now almost smell our new life together in that house. That's what this is all about; a safe, beautiful nest to bring up our two wee boys.

Mindblowing stuff.