Barbra is right. I can be excited about the mundane things in life. No one thinks much about a roof on a house but as a builder I can sense when the gutters are full of leaves and need cleaning. I can see the moss expanding and their roots filling the spillways in the roofing, beginning to curl the shingles. I know another season and my house will be leaking and there will be buckets everywhere. That is a real problem, replacing Sheetrock, bagging up soggy insulation. Replacing a worn out roof is protecting an investment but it was so much more to me. I literally grew up in this house and admit an emotional attachment.
Jane and I bought this house, a falling down 900 square foot structure on a large city lot in 1970 for $8,375 dollars. I was twenty two years old, working at the cannery and going to the University of Oregon at the time. We had been renting a little 2 bedroom house behind a tavern for $85 dollars a month and they were going to tear it down to expand their parking lot so we had to move. Average rents had gone up to a hundred dollars a month and the idea of paying someone else that much money for a place to sleep was appalling to me! I would rather live in a shack of my own making than pay that much rent!
Over the years the house changed. A foundation was added, half was torn down, 2,000 square feet was added, an apartment, a little studio for my mother was built onto the back. I have put a new roof on this house three different times. I dug a water well by hand and the garden has changed as much as the house. I built the world's Best greenhouse, the steel and stone bridge that crosses the ditch, then added my shop, then created my studio and office. I built the little pool with my children and watched them being born, growing up and finally leaving this nest.
I was a cannery worker or school teacher when I built most of this house and did it all from books.
I knew nothing about construction but lost a fear while reading about it and bought one tool at a time as the projects required. The experience lead me into construction and that became my living for 35 years. My house lead me to become what I was. I have everything that I need right here and built it myself, step by step, in stages, changing as I was changing.
To see that it needed a new roof that I was not capable of installing was painful. Oh, the money, sure, but something done to the house that I didn't personally do? That was the painful part. House and me growing old! It takes adjustment.
Jane and I bought this house, a falling down 900 square foot structure on a large city lot in 1970 for $8,375 dollars. I was twenty two years old, working at the cannery and going to the University of Oregon at the time. We had been renting a little 2 bedroom house behind a tavern for $85 dollars a month and they were going to tear it down to expand their parking lot so we had to move. Average rents had gone up to a hundred dollars a month and the idea of paying someone else that much money for a place to sleep was appalling to me! I would rather live in a shack of my own making than pay that much rent!
Over the years the house changed. A foundation was added, half was torn down, 2,000 square feet was added, an apartment, a little studio for my mother was built onto the back. I have put a new roof on this house three different times. I dug a water well by hand and the garden has changed as much as the house. I built the world's Best greenhouse, the steel and stone bridge that crosses the ditch, then added my shop, then created my studio and office. I built the little pool with my children and watched them being born, growing up and finally leaving this nest.
I was a cannery worker or school teacher when I built most of this house and did it all from books.
I knew nothing about construction but lost a fear while reading about it and bought one tool at a time as the projects required. The experience lead me into construction and that became my living for 35 years. My house lead me to become what I was. I have everything that I need right here and built it myself, step by step, in stages, changing as I was changing.
To see that it needed a new roof that I was not capable of installing was painful. Oh, the money, sure, but something done to the house that I didn't personally do? That was the painful part. House and me growing old! It takes adjustment.
