heavy lifting done for the day

As it turned out, the only real heavy lifting involved the oven, which did indeed take four people to bring into the kitchen. I'm glad that's over.

I was impressed, earlier in the day, with the two dudes from Home Depot who brought over the new fridge, microwave, and dishwasher. To carry the fridge inside, they used funky harnesses that strap on like combat webbing; the harnesses are connected by a large cargo strap; the strap is fed under the heavy item to be lifted, and then the harnesses are adjusted. The guys straighten their knees... and the heavy item is lifted off the ground, supported by that one wide strap between their harnesses. One's arms are used solely to steady the item. Incredible: this setup almost completely eliminates the risk of back injury, because the pressure translates to the hips and legs, much the way a backpack's hip belt works. And yeah, the harnesses work fine on stairs.

We've got a lot to do this weekend. Most of the difficult deck work has been done, but it appears we'll have to buy a few more deck planks in order to finish up the plank-laying and routing of the planks' extreme edges. Over the weekend, we'll also have to empty out the two remaining bedrooms so that they can be re-floored on Monday; this shouldn't be difficult work, except that we'll have to be careful about scratching the new floor.

What a relief, though-- the oven's been put in place. I was pretty anxious about that.


_