And Then the Walls Went Up

Just when I really needed a boost, a boost I had. Six of our friends pulled together to volunteer a weekend of knuckle nickin', shin scrapin', ear nailin' (never mind) buckets of fun. Russel, John, Dave, and Jeff came up from Vancouver, Darrel came in from Qualicum, and all were housed thanks to Paul and Lisa at Chateau Japonnaise next door.

Pete and Judith kicked in their Italian barista, and Rob milled up the beams a few weekends before. In short, there were many peoples' hands involved in this studio raising.

We had built the floor and put up 3 of the walls prior to the extra help arriving. Jules, Rachelle and I raised the south and west walls; Al, Rob and I raised the east wall, then this weekend saw the remaining 2 walls up and sheathed, the central post up and supporting the main beams, all the rafters over the studio cut and in place, the side overhang built, and barge boards in place. That was more work completed than I had imagined.

Rachelle cooked and cleaned up all weekend from morning to night. She also took a day off from GUTZ EMS to go to town to buy groceries to feed everyone. Food ranged from the delicious meat that came out of Jeffo's incredible smoker, to Rachelle's outstanding manicotti.

In exchange for letting him work his arse off, Russell brought up a cooler full of frozen venison that he and his neighbor shot and packaged. I'm still not sure how that worked out, especially since we got two tenderloins. We are eternally grateful for the efforts of these hard working great friends. Thanks a ton guys and gals!

Oh yes, at the end of the day on Sunday, all the boys went for a hot tub soak at Pete Elkin's parents' place on the ocean. It just happened that a pod of orcas were swimming by to cap off the day!

For some more shots of the weekend including the current state of the studio check out the webalbum.