From the windows to the walls

We needed a little help on a couple of projects. I'm a little too short to hold drywall overhead while BA attaches it to the ceiling, so we decided to hire a handyman (Justin) out of Austin for the day. He did such a great job with the drywall that we had him come back the next day to help tape and float (and to me, "tape and float" sounds like a magic trick, but actually refers to taping the seams between the drywall and the smoothing mud over them. Wouldn't "tape and mud" be more accurate?)

So, Justin's help freed BA up to do other things (like scare me 1/2 to death by climbing up on the roof):

Justin is the tall guy inside the box. And my crazy husband is,
of course, the guy on top of it. 

Justin advertises on Craig's List, so if you are in the Austin area and need someone who is dependable, pleasant, and a hard worker, we definitely recommend him. 

Another thing that we needed a bit of help with is welding. We found a great guy named Thadius at Happy Trails Metalcraft. You can visit their website here. Thadius did an amazing job. He talked to us about what we wanted, and then was careful to measure and cut a neat, steady square so that we could use the cut-out metal as a shutter. We really lucked out in finding TWO good workers on this trip, and would recommend Thadius as well!

Here's what he did:

The sparks were flying! I was outside on fire watch.

A nice perforated square

The square begins to open...

We have a window! (That's Thadius on the right.)

And a window frame!

And an awesome, one-of-a-kind shutter!

The really cool metal window frame that you see in the above picture, while welded in place by Thadius, was custom-built for us by one of our neighbors. He makes some incredible furniture and fire-pits out of metal, but I forgot to ask his permission to include his name or website on here (I'll do that soon, because he makes some beautiful stuff that ya'll will love!)

What's next?

So what's next for BaHa Ranch? First, we'll be moving the box onto the foundation. It's gonna look kind of like this (side view):

To do this, we'll have to hire a crane. Unless anyone out there can think of another way to move it? Next, metal straps that were poured into the foundation will be welded to the bottom of the box to keep it in place.

After the box is securely up on its foundation, we'll be installing the windows.

Only the tallest one, leaning on the wall behind the other one on the right, is going to go on this section of our house. The rest are for later. We got these windows, used, for $15 each. We'll also be adding one of two smaller windows that are not pictured here to this section. We got the smaller windows, also used, for $5 each at a Habitat store.

The windows will be framed by a friend of ours so that they are ready to go once the box is on its foundation. A neighbor of ours has graciously offered to do any welding that needs to be done in exchange for loaning him a Bobcat that we had rented. Saves us a lot of money! And to save even more money, we are going to try to make a door from the metal of the box itself; basically, we want to cut out a doorway and then frame the metal that was cut out and use it as a door. We'll see how that goes. We also plan to insulate the inside soon, since the framing is already in place for the walls. Any environmentally-friendly ideas on insulation? Spray-in looks easiest, but that icky pink cotton-candy stuff looks most cost-effective. We're also pondering old-fashioned clay and straw insulation. Does anyone have any experience with that? What are some other options that we could consider?