Whew.

Well the kiln building didn't go exactly as planned but everything worked out in the end. Everyone came over Memorial day weekend as planned and we got started right away on building it only to realize after a day's work that it wasn't going to work. The slab wasn't level and it was affecting everything. Aaron had laid the slab and kept saying it wasn't right but I thought it would be fine. Well, he was right... so we took everything down and had to start over. I felt bad that I had everyone come over only to put up half a kiln and take it down again, but they were really cool. Thanks Jo, Trish and Vicki!

Then everything went smoothly for a while. Until we got to the arch... we had a load of trouble because the iron we were trying to use was way too thin and was bowing out under the added pressure of hard brick. Aaron, Trish and I rebuilt the arch 3 times and it kept sagging before we figured it out. I had underestimated the affect the added weight would have on the frame. Anyway I had to go get heavier metal and we were able to get the arch to hold! Hooray! I'm still having a welder come tomorrow and reinforce the frame to hold the load, he's going to drill into the concrete and add more iron supports on the sides.

So this was definitely a learning experience and took way longer than I planned but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Aaron's Dad came out on Sunday and they've been working like dogs since then. It's been really hot and humid here all week too.

So far they've built a shelter for the side of the kiln shed to keep rain out, put in a new mailbox, put in gutters and now they're working on a screen porch. Huge help! Thanks Ken. I'm really looking forward to hanging out on that screen porch. Aaron goes in for his surgery on his hand on Friday so he'll be out of commission for about six weeks.