Plank by plank by plank

I don't know if it was heat, homesickness or the high cost of living in Key West, but by the time I got to the house Ken had told the guys he was heading back to Arcadia for a bit.

Still, Gregory was back (on the weekend break from his day job), and it was great to see him again as the planks kept going on, slowly but surely.

You get a sense of the result best on the long wall(s) of the den and bedroom. Ref says the secret is to shoot a control line at eye level -- that's where any deviation will most be noticed -- and use control blocks to assure even spacing. When little adjustments are needed (and they will be, since houses aren't perfect) you cheat here and there near the top. (Don't mind the smudges, by the way; that's just a little mud.)

Also here and there on Saturday, people dropped by -- a woman from the mission project down the street, sprucing up the St. Peter's thrift shop and asking about building permits; Bud, a business partner of Realtor Ken, who made some great HVAC suggestions; and Irving.

Irving's from Montreal, but came down to Boca Raton a few months back to help a friend with his hurricane shutter business, and has been putting in manic hours since. So this weekend his daughter and his staff Shanghaied him, confiscated his cell phone and bundled him and his wife off to a guesthouse on our street for their maiden visit to Key West, no work allowed.

He asked lots of polite questions about the house, and said lots of nice things -- but then, the hearbreak of workaholism: He asked whether it was OK to take some pictures of how our windows were framed in, so his workers could get an idea of the sort of construction they needed to anchor serious hurricane shutters.

I was flattered, and of course agreed. Then I told him to go play.