And I get a front door lock.

Day 28 wasn’t a terribly busy day, at least from the outside. I wish I’d set up a camera indoors.

The main task was to build my stairs — something I really wanted them to finish as quickly as possible. The stairs would run from a vestibule just inside the front door straight up to the second floor. Without them, the only way up was on a ladder — they’d taken away the man lift on Sunday — and I just wasn’t comfortable climbing a 12-foot ladder.

They got started early enough and I went out to run an errand. While I was out, Corey called to tell me they needed to run up to Leavenworth to deal with an emergency situation on another project.

“Did you finish my stairs?” I asked hopefully.

He admitted they didn’t, then went on to tell me how important it was to handle this other project as soon as possible. I understood. I assumed that my project had gotten priority over someone else’s during the past six weeks. If I’d waited this long for stairs, I could wait a little longer.

In the meantime, I started setting up my new shop area in the front corner of the big RV garage side of the building. The shop side was 12 feet wide (when looking from the front) and 48 feet deep. I thought of it as having four sections separated by the posts that were spaced 12 feet apart. My boxes of packed items were taking up most of the two back sections. A few days before, some friends had helped me mount my 10 foot long white board — a school surplus equipment sale item I picked up for just $20! — in the second section. They’d also helped me move the three pieces of my old desk into the front corner that would be my shop. I’d toyed with the idea of listing the desk on Craig’s List or giving it to a client who had just set up a new office in town. But I realized that although the work surface — a Formica laminate — wasn’t suitable for working with tools, the tables were a good height and size. I could cover them with a more substantial surface material, like 3/4 inch plywood. It would certainly save the cost of buying or the bother of building a real workbench.

I dragged my rolling toolbox out of the shed and into the building. I placed the new top toolbox on top of it. And then I rearranged the desk components to make an L-shaped workspace. I was pleased with the results.

I started to set up my shop on July 3.

As for the desk I’ll use for my computer work, that’ll be much smaller than this old setup. I have a desk and matching file cabinet I bought for the Phoenix condo I lived in part time with my wasband before our divorce. It’ll be perfect in the space I’ve set aside as a home office upstairs. Until then, it’ll wait with the rest of my furniture for the final move.

I should mention here how weird it was — at least at first — to start setting up a permanent workspace. I’ve been living in a number of temporary homes for the past two years: my RV in Washington, my house in Arizona, my RV in California, my house in Arizona, my RV in Washington in three separate locations, a house nearby, my RV in California again, and then back to my RV on my homesite. My worldly possessions have moved from my Wickenburg house and Phoenix condo to my Wickenburg hangar to a Wenatchee hangar and then finally to my building. This has been going on for almost two full years and the temporary nature of my living situation had become almost second nature. But now I had a permanent home, something that belonged to me now and in the future. I’d designed it to have storage space for my things, a shop, and living space. The shop area was ready to move into — why not make the move? This was an entirely novel idea to me, but one I warmed to quickly as I began drilling holes in the girts to hang power tools and cables. It was my space to do with as I pleased.

I think I might have been on Cloud 9 most of the day, despite the stalled stairs.

I was working on my shop when the builders came back. I was surprised. I thought they’d have to wait until the next day. But they showed up around 2 PM and got right to work on the stairs.

Corey and one of his guys working on the stairs. The final staircase has four stringers, making them extremely solid.

While they worked on the stairs, I set about my next task: installing doorknobs and locks on my front door. I’d never installed a doorknob or lock before, but I couldn’t imagine it being very difficult, especially since the door and jamb were already cut to accept a doorknob and deadbolt. The project price included doorknobs and locks, but I didn’t want them to waste money on the typical Kwikset locks everyone seems to use. I wanted something more secure, so I bought a Schlage set with a door handle instead of a knob.

The set went in smoothly — except for the fact that I put it in the wrong hole and needed to move it (duh-oh!) — and worked well. Later, as I walked back to my shop area to put away my tools, I looked down at the keys in my hand and realized I was holding the keys to my new home.

Corey and his helper worked late. Some friends came for dinner; I had leftover chicken and pork tenderloin from the night before. When the builders left, my friends and I tried out the new stairs. I gave them my standard “tour” of the upstairs, knowing that the walls would be in place soon.

What was really nice was that the garage area was finally cleaned up — the builders had done a great job of picking up their stuff and sweeping before leaving that evening.

My garage/temporary dining room, all cleaned out.

Much later, Mother Nature rewarded me with a sunset so amazing and huge that I needed to use the panoramic feature of my phone’s camera to capture it all. What a great day!

An amazing sunset, shot from my front door.

Here’s the time-lapse for the day. Lots of coming and going, but not much in the way of exterior activity. Is it work watching? I don’t know. The movement of the clouds is kind of fun.

A lot done in one day.

I’m way behind on my construction project blogging. Part of reason for that is because construction really slowed down around the time they prepped to put in the concrete. As a result, there isn’t much to report.

But a lot of work was done on July 2.

The workers arrived bright and early and got right to work on the side deck. They’re framing the deck — not finishing it — but it’s still quite a task considering its 58-foot length.

Before lunch, they moved around to the front deck and got started on it. But they couldn’t really get into it until the missing metal pieces arrived. That happened around noon and they spent much of the afternoon removing the temporary pieces and putting in the correct ones.

The last thing they did was to close up the big RV garage doorway. With the help of a bunch of friends, I’d moved all of my worldly possessions into the building on June 28. At that time, the building had no garage doors. The four smaller garage doors were put up on Monday. But the big garage door was still on order and not expected until July 15. That meant I had absolutely no way to secure my home. Someone could drive up with a truck while I was running errands in town or on a cherry drying flight, back right into the big door, load up, and take off.

Yes, the chances of that happening were very slim. But there was still a chance.

The builders remedied the problem by building a solid (although not very attractive) wooden wall across the bottom of the doorway with heavy duty plastic sheeting across the top to keep out rain. That’s what occupied the crew at the end of Day 27. When they left, my building was pretty much secure.

When the builders left on July 2, the metal on the front of my building matched and the big doorway was secured with a temporary wall.

Later, when the builders had gone, the guy I hired to do the living space framing showed up with his bid. He made the fatal error of hanging around longer than he needed to — any strong pairs of arms that spend idle time at my place are soon put to work helping me move heavy items. He helped me move my dining table from where my friends had put it in the back of the RV garage into one of the garage bays. When he left, I set up chairs around it, opened the garage door, and hosted a dinner party for four friends on my dining table for the first time: smoked local chicken and grilled pork tenderloin.

Here’s the time-lapse from the day’s work.

A short day with a new work crew.

It was nearly 11 AM on Tuesday when a new work crew showed up. Angel and his crew, who had done most of the work, had started a job up in Winthrop, about 90 miles away. The last time I saw Angel, he’d told me about how they camped out up there and partied every night. Corey told me they went fishing, too. It seemed like a lot more fun than they’d had at my job site.

This crew would be framing out the deck. They arrived, spent some time waiting around for the boss, got the directions they needed, and got to work.

I was out again so I missed most of the action. I spent the morning with Gary, a pilot who was working for me in Quincy, and his wife Lori. We’d gone out to an early breakfast and then toured an orchard while picking was going on. My client met us there and said some nice things about me to my companions before answering all their questions about growing cherries. Afterward, we tried to take the boat out but it was having battery issues; I guess it’s time to replace Ron’s battery.

The time-lapse camera was running, and that’s how I know how long the workers were here and what they did. It was a short day and they didn’t get much done. But they did start work on the side deck; work on the front deck has to wait until the two missing pieces of metal arrive and are installed.

Here’s the time-lapse:

The four small doors go in quickly.

I didn’t even see most of it happen — it was my birthday and I was busy with other things. Relaxing indoors, writing blog posts, and just taking it easy in the morning and then going out to be treated to dinner at Cave B in Quincy by four pilot friends and two of their wives.

The crew of four guys put my garage doors on: all four of the small ones. I should note here that the “small” garage doors are not all that small: they measure 10 feet wide by 8 feet tall. I wanted them to all be the same size and I needed them to be wide enough to fit my one-ton Ford pickup, which is pretty darn big.

I stopped by early in the day to take a photo for my scrapbook and to answer questions about where I wanted the windows. We decided on the top of each door so lots of light would get in but the casual snooper wouldn’t be able to look in without a ladder.

The garage doors come in panels and are assembled onsite.

The big garage door isn’t expected to arrive until July 15 or thereabouts. The crew will need a man-lift to install it, so they wouldn’t have been able to install it on Monday anyway; the freshly poured concrete needs a full week to cure before vehicles can be driven on it.

The time-lapse shows how the job was done; note the bees on the lens at the very beginning of the movie:

Finally, the concrete slab goes in.

I was up early on Friday. I’d been out late the night before and didn’t set up my time-lapse camera inside the building before going to bed. That meant getting it squared away before the builders and concrete guys showed up.

Fortunately, I’d already run an extension cord into the building, slipping it through a crack in the corner that hadn’t been finished yet. This kept it out of the doorway and off the ground. Corey had tied into my cord for his lights. I spent about 15 minutes in the dark trying to get the camera set in a good position to capture the action. In the end, as the guys started arriving, I gave up trying for perfection and just crossed my fingers. The outdoor time-lapse was still in position and running.

What followed seemed like controlled chaos. Builders began arriving at 4:45 AM. Then the concrete guys arrived. And then the first of four concrete trucks.

I think what amazed me most was that they were able to back a concrete truck into my RV garage. I didn’t realize the space was that big — but I guess it has to be to fit the mobile mansion.

Why yes, a cement mixer can fit in my garage.

The first pour was into wheelbarrows that needed to be moved into place and dumped. Two of the builder’s guys handled that chore while the concrete guys spread the concrete into place.

To get the far corners, they had to move the concrete with wheelbarrows.

The crews moved remarkably fast, with the next truck waiting each time a truck finished up. One of the workers told me that the concrete wasn’t waiting that day — I guess that meant it was setting up quickly. That would explain the urgency in which the concrete guys worked.

By 7:17 AM, they were in the far corner of the building, right beneath the time-lapse camera I’d set up 3 hours before.

Because they knew they’d have concrete leftover, they framed out a small pad in front of my shed and poured that, too. This is great — it’ll help reduce the amount of dust I track into the shed.

The last thing they poured were the post holes for the four front deck posts.

While the last bits of concrete were being poured, the concrete guys were inside, hard at work smoothing and grading the surface. The RV garage has a drain down the middle of it and the concrete surface needed to slope down toward it on all sides. The other garages also sloped gently out their doors. The guys worked with pads and trowels and other tools and equipment to get the surface just right.

Pouring was just half the job — the easy half, I think.

When they were all finished, they sprayed a sealer on the surface. And then they left.

Want to see a time-lapse of the concrete work? Here you go:

Meanwhile, outside Angel’s crew was hard at work adding trim to the building corners and around the windows and doors. The usual time-lapse camera caught the action; you can see it below.

I went out to do some shopping; I was having a big party the next day. When I got back late that afternoon, Corey had just finished cutting expansion joints into the perfect slab. He explained that this would help prevent the concrete from cracking. There was at least one cut running to each of the 36 posts inside the building.

He told me I could walk around inside if I wanted to, so I did. It looked wonderful. He warned me not to drive on it for a week. But yes, it would be fine for the party the next day — and for storing all of my possessions.

My finished floor. The shiny surface is from the sealant they used to help speed up the curing process.

Here’s the regular time-lapse for the day. It doesn’t show much of the concrete work, but it does show the trucks coming and going, as well as the trim work Angel and the guys did.