The Family Room Ceiling Story Begins

Many of you know I have talked about lining the family room ceiling in beetle kill pine (blue-stained) for a number of years.

Well, its time has come. Yesterday after shopping a number of places (on-line), we bought 45 - 16' T&G beetle kill boards to start the project.

Let's see a 16' board will stick 6' beyond the tailgate of our pickup, so no problem, and we were off to Fountain.

For those of you who keep track of where I buy things you will be happy to know these came off of a Craigslist ad I spotted about a week ago.

Everything was loaded and the mandated red flag attached so we began the journey home.

I nervously watched the load for a few miles, but everything seemed OK. We even made a couple more stops in Florence and Canon before heading up the hill.

No problemo, made it to Autumn Creek.

Made it up the hill to the house to drop off groceries, but as I walked around the back of the truck I noticed THERE WAS NOTHING THERE! Where the hell had I dropped the load?

Shouting at Marlys to hurry up (am downplaying this just a little) we jumped back in the truck and started backtracking. There was $350 of wood laying out there somewhere. We are hoping that it wouldn't be back on CO Hwy 9 or US Hwy 50.

As we came to the first turn (last turn when coming to our place) there it was sitting in the middle of Autumn Creek Drive, still wrapped and flagged.

We it made all the way (~100 miles) except the last freaking turn.

I turned around and came back to reload it.

Of course I turned in a little too soon to get in front of it and drove over the edge of a bunch of boards. Did I mention this is tongue and grove, so the edges damage real easy.

We reloaded and I got it back to the shop. I couldn't, wouldn't look at it to survey the damage until today.

I need 39 board for the ceiling. I bought 45 to be safe. I screwed up 11. I am now either going to have to figure out a fix, or go back to Fountain and get some more.

Stay tuned, because I have an idea.

Tomorrow we are off to do alpine training with the SAR team at Monarch Ski area (closed for season, but getting 3-5 inches of snow tonight). We are going to work on our self-arrest technique, or lack there of, roped up hiking and climbing, and use of crampons. I am bringing a camera because it could be humorous.