While the Western half of the USofA was on fire, Washington had plenty too. Fire came within 7 miles or so from our kid’s home, but we never had to evacuate. The smoke was VERY thick, however, and lasted for 10 days or so.

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This week’s blog will mostly be a summary of the shop project.  With the smoke so thick you had to shovel it out of the way to walk, we weren’t going to go hiking or do anything outside. We had extremely strong winds a couple of days before the fires, and a dead tree a little ways behind the motorhome broke, and fell onto another tree. We were not happy leaving it that way, thinking it may fall unexpectedly and maybe squish somebody we care about. It wasn’t very close to a roadway where we could pull with the truck, so we tried people power and a rope around the trunk. Here’s the short version:

Adirondack Chairs

In honor of Ashlyn’s baptism, and Bryan’s birthday, we gave them a couple of Adirondack chairs. The point is they can comfortably study their Bibles outside in God’s great nature. The fun was putting them together! Very well made, and a fun little project. And they are really comfortable!

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Shop Project

Our kids just moved to this cool place near Spokane.  It has a beautiful house, and a large outbuilding they call the “shop.”  It is a nice pole barn, with concrete covering two thirds of the floor.  The remaining third is very large gravel, to allow mud and snow to fall off a vehicle and not onto the clean floor.  The shop had metal siding, but no insulation.  Loren was hoping to insulate and finish the walls, eventually making it good for playing in as well as storing cars and stuff.  He got a bid to do that work, and I said I could do it for about half that amount… since the labor would be free!  (I never said I was clever)  

So we set out to upgrade the shop.  As a post barn, it had no regular framing that you could hang the drywall on.  So we had to frame out the whole interior.  We needed to add a couple electrical circuits so there would be plenty of outlets for future needs. (11 Quad outlets should be adequate!)

First all the materials get delivered:

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Next, We build the framework:

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After the electrical wiring is in, up goes the insulation:

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Then the Sheetrock goes up…

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Then taping and sanding:

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Finally, primer and paint:

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And now they have set up a slightly small Pickle Ball court! Fun!

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Some other things going on during the Shop Project:

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And now, what you’ve been waiting for (even if you didn’t know it) – Videos! One short one of framing up a panel, and then one of the whole project.