Adventures with Jacob
Submitted by
Tim on Sat, 02/17/2007 at 9:49am.
Jacob calls me one night a couple months ago from school and explains that his art teacher would like to have a wall built. No problem I say. Well, he explains: this wall needs to be 16' long, 8' tall , built in an art exibit gallery with hardwood floors, and can't be attached to the floor, ceiling or wall in any way. Oh, and the center piece for the show is being shipped from southern Cal, will hang on this wall and weighs about 75 pounds. I'm not interested I say! Ok, he says...how about figuring what the materials and labor would cost.
Ahh...problem solved, no one will want to spend $800 or so for a temporary wall...end of story. Or so I thought ! 2 weeks ago Jacob calls me....remember the wall? Yes?, guessing that $800 must surely have dissuaded his teacher. Well he explains, she wrote me a check for 800 bucks and needs this wall done next weekend for the upcoming show. At this point there was a long moment of silence in our conversation. Jacob continues...Dad I told her you were really good, you can build anything, right?? She is a really nice person...blah,blah blah. All I can manage to say at this point is...well I guess,****.
Severson Concrete has recently aquired a 20' stepvan. This then will be 1993 GMC's maiden voyage. Load all tools , saws,compressor ,sheetrock tools,etc. Jacob will come up from Salem Thursday night, we will go to Home Depot, load up 30- 8' 2x4 studs, 4-16' 2x4 plates( all hand picked by squabbling brothers Jacob and Jason). I had to leave the lumber area to find tape and mud for sheetrock and acted like I didn't know these two people. Noticably none of Home Depots employees were offering them any help, in fact they also left the area with me. Finally two full carts including 9 -sheets sheetrock and all the rest have been loaded into the van when Jacob decides there is still room to load up the Home Depot's huge cart. No way I'm not stealing a cart, I protest. Jacob insists we could really use it at the campus jobsite...he will go back in and ask for permission. Meanwhile, Jason comes back out and tells me the cashier Jacob has asked for permission has referred him to the manager...who happens to be a female. Ohh..well load it up!! That cart came in very handy getting all the material into the building.
So how did we do it? The art dept., most staffers opposed this "Wall", had some 18"x18"x32" rectangular plywood cubes...display pedestals. We useded these 32" way end to end. Framed two 16' long 2x4 walls and screwed them to the pedestals. Then stacked sand bags in between the walls to weight it down, srewed in some cross members and viola, an 18" thick wall stable and ready for sheetrock and trim.While constuction was underway we were under close scrutiny by staff members and we referred to our wall only as a "temporary partitian". Jacobs teacher, the instigator wasn't available that first day. After the fact, I learned the profs who had shown such interest, were in fact heads of the Art Dept. How do I get myself into these predicaments.....ahhh adventures with Jacob. I will post a couple of pics of our "temporary partitian". And, Jacob...I am NOT interested in any wall removal jobs.....
177 reads | 20 comments |
4 votes:
Comments:
Back to top