Of Trusses, Frames and Shelves

And the clouds parted on the third day, and there arrived a crew, a motley crew, to take that which was laid before them to bring to form that which will, by Heaven's will, once again be called … home.

Indeed the rain departed earlier than expected on Tuesday. The pre-constructed floor trusses arrived during Monday's monsoon, along with piles of subfloor and stick lumber. By the end of the day Tuesday, the trusses were laid and the basement was largely framed out. There are some errors, minor in nature, that will need to be corrected, but the ongoing transformation promises to be quite dynamic over the next several days.

I took quite a few pictures yesterday, and below I tried to select a representative sample to share with you. The major difference in the rebuild design versus the original house plan is our decision to finish out the basement. The new basement plan will feature an open family space, storage space, a bedroom, the storm shelter, a bathroom, and an odd little polygon that will serve as storage for all the exercise equipment we intend to buy but will likely rarely use.

Here's a shot of the floor trusses against a brilliant blue sky:

Here's a picture of the aforementioned polygon room, taken from the family space. It is actually where our ping-pong table (stacked high with boxes) used to be:

Standing near the exterior doorway of the basement, the shot below shows a new load-bearing wall extending much of the length of the basement. Behind that wall you can see the old "storm shelter" (which wasn't really). That whole space, extended all the way to the right where it adjoins the storm shelter, will be storage.

Below you can see what will be family space in the forefront, along with the storm shelter to the left and back, and straight ahead past the family space the new spare bedroom.

One final picture for today, but this one comes with a short background story. We hereby lay to rest and/or retire our beloved storage shelves. Years ago, my dad and I built these shelves for the basement, the prototypes for what I had envisioned to be but two of many. They held boxed up Christmas trees, decorations, containers of old children's clothes and toys, broken coolers, and whatever else we felt needed to be off the floor. When the house collapsed, the shelves took a shattering blow from the joists overhead, yet remained standing holding some of their fare. The wood was splintered and cracked, and the shelves had quite the offset lean, but upright and proud they remained. When the debris was cleared from the property, these survivors remained on the basement pad. For months they sat, unused, exposed to the weather. But when the builders arrived, new life and new utility came upon these friends. A chance to be used once again, they held tools, supplies, and refreshments. They moved from one end of the basement to the other, wherever they were needed. And on that day when the concrete trucks arrived and the laborers had need, these shelves served as extra scaffolding as the concrete was poured into the wall forms. Alas, finally, as the framers came to complete their work in the basement, it was time to retire these fine pieces of homemade construction. I wish there was someway to save them, but they have already given more than we could have ever expected. And so even now as I write this tribute, intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I find myself just the slightest bit emotional about these shelves that have been but a light-hearted novelty these past many months. To be certain, there will be progeny. But these shelves certainly have gone far above and beyond the call of duty. I will actually miss them. But they will remain a great story, one that I'm certain to tell again and again. As my dad recently remarked, "when we build ‘em, we build ‘em!" And did we ever. May we do so again someday.