Still Not Done

Despite working every available minute and then some, I couldn't quite finish the house in time for today's birthday party; the doors and windows are not yet built.  Still, it's most of the way there, with the roof complete, a ceiling installed (to cover up the roofing nails pointing in), and the railings in place and painted.   No interior ladder yet, but the inhabitants were quick to figure out how to scramble up using the window frames.

I noticed today that the two primary rim joists have already developed a slight bend, curved like a U from the weight of the structure above them.  How annoying.  But to put in two more concrete piers and a pair of floor jacks seems, well, excessive.  It's just going to settle into place, I guess.

Mad Rush to Finish

Sonia's birthday is only seven days away, and there's no way I can finish.  But I want to get done as much as possible.

The photo is from yesterday, and doesn't show the siding, trim and tower roof nailers I did today.  I painted the fascia after it got dark, working on other stuff just a little too long, and I couldn't really see what I was doing.   Hopefully there won't be any big surprises tomorrow morning.

Progress

I finally charged the camera batteries, so you can see what's been done lately.  I finished most of the siding last weekend, and much of the fascia today.  (The tower has to wait until the gable roof is shingled.)  Not showing in the photo is the north side, the shingling for which is mostly complete.  It's still going to be a challenge gettting the place "habitable" before Sept 27th, but the project is moving along.

Yesterday a woman peered over the fence, while I was hammering away on the roof, and got my attention to ask, "Can I have your card?"  This baffled me for a moment, since I don't have any cards left, but then I realized she wasn't actually asking about my latest writing.  She suggested I change careers, which was a nice compliment, but at the pace this playhouse has been going, I'd have to charge about ten times market rate to break even.

Compromises

I'd hoped to begin putting up the siding this weekend, but as usual everything took longer than expected.  I finished most of the trim, including the corners, doorframes and windows.  Sills for the six windows were cut, at an angle, from a 2x6.  In the photo everything looks neatly painted white, but that's just primer; I have to apply a finish coat, perhaps some morning early before the helpers are up and about.  I also built the balcony door, though it won't be installed until near the end.

Annoyingly, most of the trim is not precise.  Many of the joints show small gaps, and none of the sills fit perfectly into their frames.  If I were a real carpenter I would have shimmed the casements to be square in all dimensions (not just the facing plane), but since I didn't, the small deviations from 90-degree angles proved impossible to accommodate.  I tried slopping lots of extra primer into the gaps but that didn't really work.  

So that's the theme of the project right now:  compromises.  I did rip off one piece of installed corner trim, wasting an hour's labor, to correct an error too egregious to leave in place.  But mostly I'm trying to let go of the pursuit of perfection, and just get the darn thing done.