Dig the holes two feet deep, allowing six inches of the posts to protrude above ground. If you drive two stakes a short distance beyond the foundation, in line with your foundation lines, and run a string from the top of one stake to the top of the other, you can, without much trouble, get it upon a perfect level by testing it with your home-made level, and adjusting the stakes until the string represents the level for your sill. When this is done,
Set Your Posts
to correspond to the level of the string, then place your sill on top of the posts, and test that with your level. If found to be correct, fill in the dirt around the posts and pack it firmly, then spike your sill to the posts. Go through the same operation with the opposite set of posts and sill.
Fig. 68.
The first difficult work is now done, and, with the exception of the roof, the rest only needs ordinary care, and what old-fashioned people used to term “gumption.”
It is to be supposed that you have already sawed off and prepared nine two-by-four-inch beams, each of which is exactly eight feet long. Set these on edge from sill to sill, equal distances apart, the edges of the end-beams being exactly even with the ends of the sills (Figs. 66 and 69). See that the beams all cross the sills at right angles, and toe-nail[10] them in place.
You may now neatly
Floor the Foundation
with one-inch boards; these boards must be laid lengthwise with the building and crosswise with the beams. When this is finished, you will have a beautiful platform on which to work, where you will be in no danger of losing your tools, and you may use the floor as a table, on which to measure and plan the sides and roof.