Finally put a couple of pieces of siding on.  We did this mostly to stabilize and square the building before we tried to set the dome.  It's really sturdy now.

Got the wheel track installed in the dome.  This was probably the hardest thing so far as it was tough to get the ends cut to match and keep the tracks back solid against the dome wall.  I ended up with one small gap between track pieces of about 1/16" and may have to put shims to square it up.

 
Well, I need a door about 60" tall.  I don't know where to buy hobbit doors and I'm too cheap to spend the money on a new one anyway when I have a perfectly good old door laying around.  OK so it isn't perfectly good but it is sturdy and a few coats of paint should fix it up.  I pressure washed it in the first pic and much of the many layers of old paint came off.  Then I cut it down to 61" leaving about a half an inch for weather stripping.  It was getting late and Laura was calling for supper so I shoved it in the hole and took a quick pic.  The door opening is a little tight.  I may have to plane the opening a little to make enough room.  As I pasted this pic in the web page I noticed that I had stuck it in upside down.  Oh well, it's just temporary.

 
I decided the best way to cut the hole for the ring was to install the corner flats and then strap the ring in position and mark the circle on the inside of the ring.  You can see in the second pic the ring with the wheels installed.  We tested the ring with the wheels on the dome while it was sitting upside down in the grass and it turned really well.  I tried to cut the circle with my crappy jig saw and that wasn't getting me anywhere so I grabbed the dewalt all-saw.  It threw saw dust everywhere but it was done in about two minutes.

 
Our neighbor Mike was nice enough to help us lift the dome in place (THANKS MIKE!).  He grabbed one side, I grabbed the other and Laura stabilized it.  We lifted it up over the wheels and it was in place in about a minute.  It was sitting a little crooked so we adjusted that and it sat right down in the tracks.  I pushed it with two fingers and around she went.  I was really worried that it would not rotate well once the weight of the dome was on it but it spins just fine in both directions.  We opened the shutter and then stood inside grinning like idiots for a while.

 
The dome was dirty from sitting around in the grass for over a year.  We had it blocked up but it still got some grass stains and a little dirt plus a nice all over skim of grey just from being outside.  I grabbed the pressure washer and washed it inside and out.  Kaspir thought it was great.  He stood underneath and got soaked and grinned the whole time.  Then he decided he was going up the ladder to wash it hmself.  Luckily, we caught him before he got there.

 
I was a little worried about the stability of the structure but here it is with the dome and my not so little weight on top and it is rock solid.  While I was washing uptop, Laura said there were two little rugrats running around underneath so I had to spray them to get them out.  It ran them off but they kept coming back for more :-)

So there is still work to do to put the rest of the siding on, the rest of the roof decking and a bunch of finish work but I kind of feel like we have made it.  It's very cool to look off the deck and see a dome in the backyard.

 
Here is master craftsman Niko at work sanding down the door.  He wishes I'd just go away :-)

 
Getting lots of help painting and then finally got it installed.

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