The front wall was so much more complicated than the back. The back wall, we finished in two days. The front wall took us four. Partially, it is the difference in height. Five feet may not seem an immense distance, but a 17’4″ sheet of steel is much heavier and harder to handle than a 12’4″ sheet. Also, we had the challenge of cutouts on both levels to navigate.

We also had to keep conservation in mind. We needed to stretch the available steel as far as possible in order to be able to finish the end walls.

We discovered for the tall wall, that running the housewrap vertically was much easier and made a far tidier job than trying to run it horizontally. It will give me a few more seams to tape inside, but that’s okay. We have lots of TuckTape.

We stopped at the window piece for the day because the next piece would be the loft door, and that was guaranteed to be complicated and take time and concentration. At the end of a day we’re tired and more likely to make mistakes. Better to wait and do it first thing in the morning when we’re fresh.

Even waiting for clear heads, we messed it up. Two or three seperate ways, in fact. For the first, because part of the width was cut away in that section, as we were raising the steel up, it folded upon itself and left deep creases that are visible. It looks like something heavy struck the wall ten feet in the air. For another, the hole was cut almost 3 inches too wide on the left side and we had to improvise a patch. We had to patch on the other side also (visible in the photo) because of where the cutout hole fell in regard to the steel. Basically, if you look closely, we made a hash of it. But from a few feet distance it doesnt look too badly

There have been a few odd occurances and moments when God has provided for us is strange ways. The fourth day was one of the weirder ones.

When we finished for the third day, I measured the distance from the installed steel to the door frame. A sheet of steel is 38″ wide. It measured at 36″, which meant we were going to start the day with another awkward cutout. And it would mean that we would have less than 2 sheets left over, also, which we really needed.

When we got to work the fourth morning, I double checked the measurement so as to know exactly where to cut.

I have no explanation for it other than my King has a sense of humour and a taste for drama. In any case, this meant that 1) the pieces were entirely straightforward and relatively simple, and 2) we could use the piece remaining from the back wall directly over the door, leaving one full piece unused, and giving us the 2 extra pieces we needed to finish the job. HalleluYah.