It came, it sawed, we conquered

First thing Friday, Arnold pulled me over to the chop saw, handed me a piece of scrap wood and told me to cut it.

Whoo-ee. He'd bought a new blade -- not an expensive one, just good, a kind he said he'd had on his saw at home for the last decade -- and it made fast, smooth work of the wood.

Its precision was a great match for Arnold's. In this picture you can see the level of one board over the door on the wall outside the little guest bedroom. Take a look at where it intersects the front wall in the distance: perfect alignment with the course of boards on that wall. You might think that's the easiest thing in the world to make happen. Sure. Just try it.

At any rate, by the close of business Friday, that wall was done -- finito, terminado. And it was beautiful. Franklin, who came back after taking his wife to a medical appointment, studied the detail of the casings, the structure, with great admiration. Dollie dropped by, looked all around and whistled.

Earlier in the day, a woman and two guys passing by stuck their heads inside the door and asked if they could look around. I gladly walked 'em through. Maybe because I'd been carrying lumber around, they seemed to assume that I was one of the builders.

Finally upstairs, bowled over, the woman asked whether we were building it for a client or for sale. I told her it was my house. "Oh, you lucky man," she blurted, with wide eyes.

Tell me about it, I said with a huge smile.