cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeping the Momentum I took yesterday afternoon off from building, as planned. I think that today I'm going to start putting in the windows and doors. There's really no reason not to. I'm a bit torn about what to do about this extra lumber that I need. I'd like it right away, but if I have it delivered from Lowes it will cost me eighty bucks or so for delivery. However, if I wait 2 weeks, there is a new Lowes opening up much closer to my house. Delivery costs will probably be about a third of what I have to pay for lumber to come from the other place. It's a question of momentum as much as anything else. I worry that if I have to wait 2 weeks until putting up the ridge board then I will lose my momentum. The tricky thing with building as an art is that there's not usually much room for practice. Like, if you want to learn how to paint then you'll probably sketch and then paint dozens of pictures before you come up with something worth putting on the wall. The practice pieces can just be thrown away or stuck in an old trunk or something. Nobody has to see those. Not so with building. When you finish your first little house, there it is for all the world to see. You can't say 'never mind' and toss it out. This first little house is not great art. It's a student's first effort. I have made all sorts of mistakes, fortunately none of them are fatal and the house will be perfectly dry and sturdy. But if a professional carpenter looks very closely, he would see that one of the lengthwise walls is a few inches longer than then opposite one and that this has caused me to get 'creative' with the layout of the ceiling rafters and the overhang of the roof on that end. There's all sorts of little things like that. But it's ok. The building will still be sturdy and useful and look nice enough. After finishing this one, I'm going to get the actual new house built as fast as humanly possible on our budget of zero. And then my next projects will be a little more interesting. I want to start building some follies that have some actual artistic interest. Like I'd love to build that copper cube that I thought up last year. Or a 3 story tall tower would be neat, assuming that I could figure out a good scaffolding system to stand on while I sheath it. 10:58 - 2008-04-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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