Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Pigeon Loft & Railing

So today Desi (from Wheekers) was over to help with the pigeon loft.  Everyone seems to wonder why this is taking so long, but it really is one of those slow-moving projects.  So, to bring everyone up to speed, the loft has the frame up, all shelves up (except for one side I still need to figure out what to do with), and the plywood sides up.  No roof, no doors.  So it's still being tarped when it's not being worked on.  Still need to figure out that roof.  But for today, we were working on the doors.

I should have taken a picture, but the front is divided in the middle, and so the right side was going to be one large door.  Built that first.  Cut the wood, put on the corner brackets, put in the screws, and stapled /hammered on the hardware cloth.  And had loads of fun with those drill-through handles.  The last cage I built had the handles with the screws on the front.  Oh, no, but for this one I decided I wanted the ones you couldn't see the screws for.  Yeah, those take a bit more finesse to put on.   But we got it.  So we got that door hinged on... and it wouldn't close.  Alrighty, out comes the sander.  So, sanded it until we could get it to close, barrel bolted it, and moved onto the other side.  Now, pigeon lofts, from the sites I read, are supposed to have a door that can be left open so the pigeons can fly back in (when you get to that point).  So, we cut a 2x4 and attached it about 8 inches down from the top.  Well.... see, that woulda been super easy had I not already put up the plywood on the sides.  So, we had to take a trip to Home Depot to get some brackets to attach to the one side, since I didn't want to mess with trying to drill blindly through plywood and just hope to hit the wood on the other side. 

So, we get that attached, cut the door and get it all ready to attach and put it in place.  And put on the hinges and everything and then realize... it is really not all that close to closing whatsoever.  So, sander comes out again.  In hindsight, we should have detached it and cut off a tiny edge on the saw.  Because we sanded FOREVER.  Or actually, Desi sanded for awhile while I tried to prep for the last door and pull weeds out of the area where the loft is going to go, and eventually we switched.  So finally that one went on.

Now, for the last door, we used our brains.  Instead of cutting the door so it'd fit nice and snug.... I had it where I (previously) would have thought would have been a good size for the verticals... and then trimmed off a little bit more.  And amazing, only a teeny tiny bit of sanding once the door was up.

So, now all the front doors are on.  I think I have a good idea of how the roof's going to attach, but if it attaches the way I'm thinking, the overhang is going to be ridiculous and needs to be cut down somehow.  So, will worry about that another day.  But now just about everything else is done.

Now, it took us all day to put on those three doors.  From like 11 am to 7 pm, with a short food break and trip to home depot break.  And she could tell you, we were working the whole time, mostly both of us working on different things at once, and it still took that long.  And this makes me think of how you see people who build cages, and they have on there, it's like $500 plus the cost of supplies, and people like balk at that... and it does seem a lot... but consider... just the doors took two people 8 hours.  And that's not including the frame, the grated bottom, the shelves... all that also.  I've been working on this loft for what seems like weeks (and it very well may be), because it just takes awhile.  

So, moving onto the railing.  If you've been in the new house, you've noticed there's no basement steps railing.  And I've even mentioned, I never noticed how often I used one until I don't have one.  And my stairs going down have a landing.  For no good reason.  Like, my parents' stairs had one, but it's because they went down a bit, landing, turned to the right, and continued down.  Mine go down, landing, go down some more.  And it kind of throws you off, and even with how long I've been here, I still misjudge where it is.  Like today.

So, I was driving Desi home and something made me think of the fact she had carrots in my fridge.  And then I was like, why are there carrots in my fridge?  Oh yeah, cause her rabbit was here.  So, we had to turn around and get the rabbit.  So, we're making our way down the basement steps, without the stair light on (cause the basement light was on, and you could see... but not well), her in front of me, and I'm (stupidly) reading a text out loud to her and not watching the stairs (both hands on the phone).  I thought the next step was the landing, and stepped forward (instead of down).  Yeah, so the landing was actually two steps down.  In that time it took me to realize I made a mistake and that I'd stepped on air, I wildly grabbed for something to hold onto, but there was no railing.  Landed on the toes of my right foot pointing down, like ballerina style, one step down, which then that foot sort of collapsed under me, and I fell forward.  I suppose, I should be thrilled I had that landing, cause had I not landed on that, I would have continued tumbling down the stairs.  With the loud thud (and probably the fact I stopped reading the text), Desi came running back to check I was ok (had to sit there for a few.... I actually thought, originally, that I might have broken something, but the pain's considerably dulled down to more a badly twisted-type pain).  And of course, it would be my right foot.  Anyway, moral of the story -- after taking my own tumble down the stairs, I will be looking into that railing sooner rather than later.     

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