House Diary #4 – Baby’s First Structure

This post is a slight detour from the previous ‘we’re building a house’ stories, but I figured last weekend’s activities merited documentation.

We decided that we needed some kind of semi-permanent structure on the property to house our big ol’ truck and possibly store other possessions. Plus, we figured the builders could use it once the official construction process got underway.

Then somebody came up with the bright idea of camping on the property over night, which sounded rather uncomfortable (Hello? Four star resort on South Pender) but I was game.

We recruited a work party of James, Monique and Lesley and went to work. There’s a sizable hardware store on the island, so we were able to order a kind of portable car port from them, and just pick it up when we arrived. The assemble went quite smoothly, and much fun was had when the instructions repeatedly referred to “elastic ball straps”.

The instructions made a classic technical writing blunder. We followed them carefully, first assembling the roof and then raising it up on the legs. Unfortunately, we reached step #8, which told us to be sure to attach the end covers before step #4, when you add the legs. That made for some precarious standing on shoulders.

All in all, though, the process was pretty painless. It definitely wasn’t a two-person job, so we were glad of all the help. The truck fits snugly inside the car port, with a little room for other stuff.

As you may have noticed in my previous post, we camped inside the car port. We deployed the actual tents to protect us from the mosquitoes. I’m not entirely sure why we put them inside the car port, though there isn’t that much flat terrain on that section of the property.

This was the most heavily documented car port assembly in history. Julie took a bunch of photos, and so did Monique. James has photos pending as well.