Today I worked on the upper frame for the loft. It really helped stabilize the whole structure. Honestly - it's all felt so wobbly up 'til now I was having trouble sleeping. Made me worry....

But no worries - as work progress and she comes together, I can really see how it works and I'm feeling darned excited.

It's funny - I usually have a radio with me while I work outside - blaring NPR. Of course the talk is all about the falling economy and the end of the world that is coming. Scary stuff, but as experts and the man on the street were lamenting the loss of money as we know it - I was happily hammering nails and daydreaming of living small. I kind of feel like Noah sometimes - and listening to the doomsday talk just makes me hammer faster!

Check out Mikey's stylin' sweater... it's getting cold out there.

Racing the big huge, very black clouds this afternoon - I framed out the two end walls - all by myself! woo hoo.

Watching the "boys" frame the two side walls taught me a lot - and it really wasn't that hard to get the front door wall and back end walls framed and raised.

Next... rafters.

I had been dreading this step. I needed to move the whole floor, walls, etc. about 1/2 an inch to get it in proper alignment for attaching it to the trailer itself. I was stumped on how to do this - since it's soooo heavy - even having several hefty men around wouldn't be able to do that... and besides, I no longer HAVE several hefty men around to help.

But it came to me in the shower, like many great ideas do - LEVERAGE! A large crowbar in the right place and a nice yank and she slipped right into place. Whew!

Then I drilled holes from the bottom up - attached some strapping at some corners, and dropped lag bolts through from the top. Violoa! She's now secured in 9 places to the trailer - through the wall framing and floor boards.