Monday, July 23rd, 2001, was a bright sunny day at the building site. The
observatory building was finally beginning to look like, well, an actual
building. The roof trusses were up, the entry door was installed,
a concrete knee wall had been poured around the subfloor slab to match the
height of the stairwell, and we were ready for siding.
We installed the entry door by welding some steel columns to the building
skeleton and then welding the steel door frame to the columns. The bottom
of the door was 27" (68 cm) above the subfloor slab; the door looked really
funny hanging high up in the middle of the sidewall.
After giving it some thought, it was decided not to lay blocks for the
knee wall around the edges of the subfloor. The spacing between the steel
columns didn't come out to even block lengths, so lots of cutting would
have been required, and it would have taken a couple of days to do. Further,
it would have taken some effort to get the block wall to work out to the
exact height required.
Instead, we built some forms in about 2 hours and called in a concrete
truck. This solved all of the problems in one stroke. After the weekend,
we stripped the forms and we were ready to finish the outside at last.
A pickup arrived from Mesa, Arizona, about 275 miles away, with 2,400
lb (1,100 kg) of residential R panel siding, cut to length for the walls
and the roof of the building, plus a wide range of caps and flashings.
Fortunately, my builder knew exactly what to do with all of these pieces,
and the job proceeded apace.
In a couple of days, the sides were on. Then,
after a really brutal day in the sun, the roof was finished. For once,
we could have used some clouds, and even an occasional rain would have
been a welcome break, but it was not to be. This all-day job was really
tough up there. The gable ends were sided, and then, finally,
it was done.
There was, to my surprise, no fanfare, no ticker-tape parade, no visit
from the President -- nothing. Suddenly, we had a building.
It seemed like forever, but it was just over two years since we'd bought
the property, and just over a year and a half since we'd started the job
by drilling a well. It took a year to build the buried basement, and I
really thought it would be another year before the building was up. But
instead, the above-ground construction took just 3-1/2 months.
To be sure, there's a lot left to do. There's no floor in the building
yet. The basement is just an empty cave, and finishing it out is going
to require a great deal of work. But there's a real building now!
One final note: after this monsoon season, with the building finally
closed in, the rain stopped. I mean
stopped; it almost
didn't rain
at all for over a year. After fighting the rain
every inch of the way while constructing the basement and erecting the
building, it just quit. I guess Mother Nature figured that if she
couldn't make my life difficult, there was no sense in carrying on.
OK, the building needs a floor now.