Only the Lonely

The greatest one-man-band I've ever seen (saw him at the Iowa State Fair last year)

When you work alone, you have to improvise.  As everyone knows, projects typically progress much quicker and easily when multiple hands are on deck.  But when your project is the result of a ridiculous obsession you've conjured in your head, its often hard to find people to help.  I suppose my mancave project qualifies as one such project...which is probably why--with the exception of lifting the beams up on top of the room--I have done everything myself.


Generally speaking, the greatest consequence of working alone is speed.  As everyone knows, having one or two extra sets of hands speeds up a project exponentially...so it doesn't come as a surprise to me that things have gone much slower than I'd prefer.  And while I typically don't like to complain or whine about being disabled, it would be disingenuous to say that my disability hasn't contributed to this project's slow rate of progress.

For whatever reason, the slow progress hasn't really bothered me...other than the fact it has delayed me getting back to restoring my truck.  I did, however, run into a situation a few months ago that warranted some ingenuity to accomplish by myself...namely, cutting two of the timber beams to accomodate for the staircase:

To clarify...to accomplish the above concept, I had to cut the two beams below highlighted in red:

Without these sections of beams removed, I wouldn't be able to add my staircase.  At first blush this may not seem problematic...just jump up there with a skill saw and cut away, right?  Ummm, no.  Even at four fee in length, these sections of beams are ridiculously heavy....just letting them crash 10 feet to the cement floor below is not a wise (or safe) idea.  Moreover, I plan to use these two four foot sections for a book shelf I'm designing...so letting them crash to the concrete below wasn't really an acceptable option.  Finally, without someone (or something) supporting the beam's free end, the likelihood of the free-end falling before the cut was completed and causing blow-out in the section of beam attached to the cave was a certainty.  So in a nutshell, I needed another set of hands to help with this one...or did I?

After careful consideration, I opted for Bandaloni-esq solution...after all, why ask for help when you can just help yourself:

Not exactly the most robust base of support

As you can see, I was able to use a 4x4, 2x6, and a 2x4 to fabricate my own personal assistant (I super-imposed some red lines to help separate the support structure from the room's framing).  It wasn't pretty, but it worked great and never complained about how slow I work.  Here are a few other angles:

One down, one to go

Now, if only I could figure out how to get this thing to help me sand...hmmm.