The Barn Raisin’

Spring has gone and summer is hitting the streets at least down here in Texas. Lots of things has happen around the house. I invited my brother Rob and his wife Lori to Texas. We wanted to show them how real Americans lived. Ok well maybe we wanted a little more than that. I need to “raise a barn” a term used by the Amish. This is when you invite all the men folk over to do a little work.  I need some smart construction work so what better person to invite but a brother who has received the same training I did from our Dad. My project, though I really wanted to do some major work on the man cave, was to build a fence for my girl friend. All men should know that you can’t be selfish with your time. You need to take care of some of the honey-do requirements, this way it allows you to enjoy the man cave at a later date. This wasn’t just any old fence this was one of them plastic/vinyl/tuber ware kind. Seems a little weak to me but no painting required, just wash it off with the high pressure washer and it looks like new.

This thing look easy but there were some major thinking we had to do. After 3 trips to Lowes and 1 to Home depot and 6 hours of work we got the gate up between the garage and the house. It looks real good. It had to have a strong post in the event someone slams it. After all the lessons learn we were able to knock the to sides out fairly easy. We had a couple issues with putting post plates into the cement. Rob didn’t know this but no matter careful we were about digging the post holes in the yard we still cut a sprinkler wire. I didn’t know this until last week when I had the sprinkler dudes come out and make some repairs. Everything went well and I appreciate Rob’s wisdom and patience with me and the Texas heat.

After completion of the fence we still had a couple hours to work on the man cave. Rob has overhauled his basement and was very familiar putting up studs. He was able to get me started by putting down the frame for the cement and the ceiling.