Category: community (Page 5 of 7)

This past first Wednesday of the month for community work day, the group graciously worked at our place to help continue with some things on the house we’re building. In preparation for being able to install a wood burning stove for the kitchen, we needed to get the ceiling paneling over to that area. As we did when the group helped put up ceiling in the bedroom, I wanted to start in the middle of the house instead of on one side, so that if the side we started on was “off” compared to the other side, we could end up with squaring problems. And so, we needed just enough panels to get from the middle of the house over to where the stove is planned to be. Running them offset by half, I figured two per row would hopefully allow us to keep the next row’s panels fairly square on the previous row’s panels.

And here’s the crew helping do just that:

And here are all of them in place. The stove is planned to go over there on the right near the wall where there aren’t any windows:

A very long time ago, probably when we bought the wood for the floor, I had bought the floor insulation, and it had been sitting in our barn for years. Recently though, with the roof on, we moved the insulation into the house, and I had started to install it. On this last workday, with the ceiling panels going up fairly quickly, and with the time left over, the men helped continue and finish installing the insulation:

Sue had been in town at one point fairly recently, and I had asked her to stop off at the hardware store to try to find these insulation holder-type things that slide between the joists and apparently help keep up the insulation. I guess the store didn’t have them, and someone there said people often use chicken wire, but that can be expensive for this type of application. Someone else suggested using wood-strip runners, which I thought was a pretty good idea, since we had the left-over 2x6s we were using as braces to twist the porch posts, and so I took them and starting ripping some of them into runners for the insulation. For a 2×6, I found that setting the guide on the rip saw at 23/32s (1/16 past 5/8 + half of the next 16th) worked just about right to evenly rip the board into 7 pieces:

And here’s a picture showing them installed:

After this work day, thanks to the help, all of the floor insulation is in place, and I only have the runners to finish for the last two sections.

The ladies helped us with some things on workday as well. They helped clean up some of our furniture that’s been in the barn since we moved everything in there, and we were able to move a lot of it into the house.

Here the ladies are helping clean:

And here is the wardrobe I had built when we had first moved here now in the bedroom closet:

Here’s the living room:

And toward the kitchen:

And here are book shelves, where we’ve finally been able to unload many of our books from the tubs we had them in from our move to Texas:

And this globe was a nice gift, which we finally get to put up:

Finally, with the heat of summer already starting, and with our camper getting very hot during those times, with very little ventilation, a few weeks ago, we decided to set up our bed that’s also been in the barn since we moved everything into it. The plan was to be able to position ourselves right in front of the window screens while we slept, so hopefully any breeze would keep us a bit cooler, and thankfully, it has worked pretty well.

The bedspread and other accoutrements we were able to get using gift certificates we had received for our wedding back in 2003! We had been saving them for things for the house, and we’re grateful to be able to finally use them:

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for His continued provisions, and allowing progress on the house. And we thank Him and the folks here for the help and service from this workday to be able to get some of these things done.

Here was a moment of relaxing:

We pray the Lord glorified Himself during our activities on workday, and that He grants a blessing on the group here for their help, and that He grants us growth in service to Him and each other.

— David

In continuing with our house we’re working on, back in the fall, I was hoping to be able to start working on finishing the bedroom so that we could be at least sleeping in there for the winter, with maybe even a small wood burner in place that we plan to have in there. But, resources didn’t really allow for that to come about, although we are grateful to the Lord for allowing us start to make some progress on the bedroom.

I believe it was back in the fall when I was able to get the insulation required for the walls, and here it all is installed:

This is the south wall:

And the west wall:

The north wall:

And the east wall:

And then, just this last community work day (which are the first Wednesdays of each month), the men came over to help put up the ceiling material, which was next on the agenda. I spent some time trying to price out the best deal that also might look kind of nice, and that could be installed fairly quickly; and so, I decided to go with what’s called “rough shod” plywood, which is a less expensive form of “T1-11”-looking siding.

It took three of us on ladders, with two helping below to hand us the plywood and screws (I decided on tan-colored Deck Mate screws, so that they would hopefully hold better than nails and would also blend in color-wise).

Here is the first row done. We decided to starting in the middle and work our way toward each side, in hopes any error in the squareness of the room would show less than if we started on one side, which might cause gaps between sheets and between sheets and walls to become cumulative as we went along. It’s actually kind of hard work holding up that sheet while trying to place it properly:

And here is the ceiling after the day’s work, facing southeast. You can see that we got everything done except that last row to the left:

And facing southwest:

And then one of the men graciously offered his time on the next Lord’s Day community visitation day to help me put up the last row (which included much smaller pieces width-wise, so just the two of us were able to handle it):

Much gratitude to the community work day ceiling crew!

And then it was time for the community work day fellowship meal. Everyone says “hello”, by the way: 🙂

We are once again very thankful to God for granting progress on the house. He’s gracious and merciful in allowing it to continue, and for allowing us the fellowship of the brethren here, in general, in serving one another. It is Sue and my prayer that she and I especially (and of course all of us) grow more in servanthood to Christ and His people.

— David