Gratz Industries HQ: Upstairs, Downstairs

Ready for another slew of pictures? Right. Here we go -

Both the first and second floor stairs have been built, which makes it much easier for us to snoop. Let Catgirl/Wonder Woman/Jo be your guide. (The face painting was from a birthday party we attended that afternoon.)

The stairs make a nice feature to the big wall in the dining room/library.

And check out how cool the two-story tall room looks!

Once Jo was upstairs, she wanted to go higher. There will eventually be a proper wall where she's standing--or at least a partial one. Just enough to keep us from tumbling over onto the concrete floor of the bottom level.

A neat view of the climbing stairs from below.

Upstairs, Wendi's work area and Jo's play area have gotten their roof.

But all Jo's interested in is getting upstairs to the third floor. I can't say I blame her.

Still, I made her stop and pose for a photo. When this wall is up, it will be as tall as the other wall with stairs--two stories tall, that is.

Upstairs the subfloor is already finished.

And one of the exterior walls is already built and ready for raising.

Jo stands in the window of what will be my office.

Did I mention that it's really high up here? It's a bit acrophobia-inspiring when there are no walls of any kind.

But the view down through the house is going to be really cool.

As is the spectacular view from the third floor porch, where I'm standing for this picture.

And where Jo is standing in this one.

One of the things I noticed is that, like the first floor porch, this one is graded slightly to allow water to run away from the house. A tricky bit of building, if I do say so myself. But it made me realize Wendi and I haven't thought of something--what are we going to use to floor this patio? It will have to be element-proof. Maybe Wendi has an idea, but I don't remember us ever discussing it. Oh well, we'll think of something.

And the usual long-shot. No significant changes to this view yet, but that is already changing. This morning the guys already have one of the third floor exterior walls up, and I suspect the others will go up very quickly. Josh has spent part of the morning scooping up the extra sand and loading it onto a truck for removal, which makes me think they see the end of the building in sight. After the third floor there is really just the roof to go . . .

More pics tonight!