Hanging pine planks in the garage

The air was brisk but not cold when the four of us moved the stored items across the garage after a breakfast of breakfast and cold cereal. Mary and Cindy walked the dogs while Mark and I went to Home Depot. We got two sheets of drywall to finish that part of the project. The pine tongue and groove planks were about $2 per square foot but we had to sort through hundreds of boards to get 250 square feet that was usable lumber. We estimated that we would ultimately need 500 square feet to cover the upper walls and the ceiling, but this was as much was we could get in this load. Mark picked up a gallon of clear water-based polyurethane to coat the boards before we hang them. We stopped by Harbor Freight to get more saw horses for Mary and Cindy to coat the boards. It was lunchtime by the time we purchased and loaded the boards so we carried the Sheetrock upstairs and started unloading the boards. We tried to get a variety of lengths from 8, 10 an 12 foot boards although most of the boards were 10 feet long. We stacked them in the garage by length and took boards needing sanding outside.

Mary made wraps of black beans, Mexican rice, and cheese for lunch then we went out to the garage to get started. Mary and Cindy worked to brush and roll sealer on the boards and place them on the garage floor to dry. Mark and I finished hanging the Sheetrock and making a crawl space opening in a side wall to access items for long term storage.

Since the sealer dried quickly on the boards, we decided to start hanging some on the 13 foot wall at the back of the garage. We put a long starter board up first with the tongue up, making certain it was level. We put 2 inch finish nails in with the Harbor Freight pneumatic nailer. We continued upward mixing 8 and 10 foot boards with mitered joints where the boards meet in a row. We completed the row by 5 pm and decided to clean up and quit for the day.

The job is looking good, and we were happy that we decided to use the pine planks. We considered options for the ceiling from continuing the wood onto the ceiling to drywall to tin. We would have some time to weigh options before we would be ready to work on the ceiling.

We went in and Cindy made a stir fry of beef, broccoli and Yakisoba noodles. I had never heard of Yakisoba but the noodles seemed a lot like Chinese Lo Mein noodles.  We did our evening language lessons before watching an episode of Astrid and Vienna Blood on streaming PBS. The weather news from Cincinnati, Georgetown and Huntington continued to sound snowy and cold. We were happy to be in Florida during the foul weather. We turned in at 10 pm.