Something about the walls going up makes the fact that we’re building a house feel so much more real. They make the future more evident, more tangible. They make the space look bigger – which is apparently a thing. After we poured the stem walls and slab, believe it or not, I was genuinely concerned the house was going to be too small. Yes, me, the person who has lived in 300 sq ft on boats and in trailers the past 5 years, was worried the house wasn’t going to be big enough. We measured and re-measured, and even discussed redrawing the plans. But apparently, my anxiety was legit. It’s an optical illusion of sorts – something about the floor being two-dimensional with no third dimension of height. We can only grasp size relative to reference points. Without walls, we cannot form a full picture. But now, with walls, I can picture the whole thing: it’s real and it’s amazing!

The other amazing thing about putting up walls is that it’s the fastest part of the house building process. In less than two weeks, Tache (almost entirely on his own!) put up the first floor walls. I helped nail the sheathing around the garage and attached a few hold-downs, but my most impressive assistance came the day I helped him stand up what will be the fireplace wall. Working on his own, Tache would measure and cut the studs, then nail them to the top and bottom plates on the ground – or more accurately, on our beautiful new concrete floor. He then needed my help standing the walls and holding them in place while he nailed them to the sill plate.

Well, the fireplace wall was heavy. The first attempt was a quick, 1-2-3 let’s see what we can do. I was able to lift it to my waist, but couldn’t make the flip from pulling to pushing. Back in my college basketball days, those were called clean and jerks. I couldn’t do them then – and apparently I can’t do them now. We set the wall down quickly – quickly yet softly. Take two! We pulled the wall off the ground and braced it up with a couple two-by-fours. That all went as planned. We got underneath the wall and pushed. All was going well… until the bottom slipped off the edge of the foundation. It was falling on us as Tache yelled, “Drop it!” I dropped it, nicking my thumb and even worse, nicking our brand new Mesa Buff floor. ARGH!! But, as expected, Tache – chill as a cucumber – said, “at least no one got hurt.” I would argue the bruise on my thumb says otherwise, but I will say, it could have been A LOT worse. Have you ever googled clean and jerk fails… yikes!