It’s 4:20 in the afternoon and I’ve just showered after working on Finn’s new fort? House? Vacation property? Think shed?) for the third time in three days. We put walls all the way around to the porch and braced them at the floor and ceiling. Yesterday we drove in to Second Chance and browsed the store to find a pair of reclaimed Andersen double-hung windows that would fit the south and west walls perfectly. Today we cut two holes in the walls and braced everything to set them in place. When that was done (and Finn was napping on the couch) I set up the compressor and sprayed the interior with white Kilz primer to clean everything up.

Now I’m sitting on the couch on the front porch, feeling the breeze blow through the windows, sipping a glass of homebrew, and feeling exhausted but content with the weekend’s accomplishments. The fort project hasn’t been free, but I’ve been able to re-use and salvage a lot of material from the prior iteration and older projects—and to have Finn hug me fiercely and tell me she loves me in the middle of a long day makes everything worthwhile.