I'm sure I've mentioned once or twice that we are building a house. We have been slowly doing this for the last five years or so. Time is our main hindrance to it's progression. Tim is a master carpenter/McGyver type handyman. I really am not bragging on him, well maybe just a tad bit. He has the 'almost miraculous' ability to take something, that most people in our American culture would simply discard and buy new, and make it look as if, that is
just what he did.
I'd like to tell you the story of the House that Tim built. This story is still being written and will continue to be so, this is really just the beginning. I'll try to keep you up to date as we go along.
It all began with an idea. Don't all good projects begin that way? It really wasn't even all his idea. Our son Jeff owned some property and had wanted to build a house on it for several years.
The property was adjacent to the 100 plus year old farm house we owned at the time.
That was a fun house. We thoroughly enjoyed our time we lived there. It was however, over 100 years old and needed more work than we were able to afford. The housing market was in good shape and it sold in record time, to a nice couple who have been kind to it and have continued to remodel it, to match it's era.
I would love to be able to show picture of this next process but....I have been unable to locate any pictures of the process. I'll just have to tell you about it instead.
Jeff and his friend Josh had once had the idea that they could dig the footers to this house by hand. They soon discovered while it
was possible, it was probably not time well spent. After the sale of the house we hired a friend to dig the footers and a 12 x 12 storm shelter and root cellar combination.
During this time we rented a trailer just up the road. When the block work was finished, the framing began. Framing on a house built from the ground up is very encouraging! It goes up fast and suddenly a house is standing where there was nothing before. In just a few days time the structure and the 'bones' of your dream are in front of you, finally visible and no longer just an image in your mind.
This really did go up fast as we had some extra help. Friends from the church we were attending came over and gave us a good old fashioned Amish style "barn raising". -The irony is, that a few of these men were actually former Amishmen.- In one weekend we had a two story house complete with walls and a roof.
I remember, after everyone left Sunday evening, Tim and I stood in the upstairs of our new home. A ladder leaned in the opening where the stairs would one day go. There was the clean fresh smell of lumber and sawdust. We stood looking out the empty holes where windows would someday be. A cool breeze began to blow and slowly a soft rain started to fall and increase in volume. The acoustical sound of rain on a metal roof with no insulation or interior walls cannot be duplicated... or forgotten. We sat down on the floor and just listened for a long time. It was a quiet peaceful moment.
Over the next several weeks Tim installed windows, plumbing and all the pipes and such that make a house flow with water in and out. We hung some insulation, what we had. Installed a woodstove, a huge Ashley that ate mounds of firewood. In a two story house with not much insulation it is chilling how fast the heat can run away and disappear seemingly into thin air. As fast as we shoveled it in only a small area surrounding the stove was very warm. Now, this was fine, as we worked there finishing up what we could. Work a while, go get warm, a nice rhythm develops.
However, the finances were getting tight. The amount we had made from the sale of the farmhouse had come to an end. It had gotten us this far. Tim was putting in a lot of time on the house, so the income was lower and in our business January and February are slow and troublesome months. Rent was costing us precious money we wanted to invest in materials for the house. So, one cold February day, we simply moved in.
It was really cold outside. Below zero. In a two story house with very little insulation those temperatures can be really tough to deal with. Our floor design was open on the first floor so the heat flowed somewhat well. I don't want to paint the picture better than it was. It was
cold. We closed the upstairs opening off as we didn't have stairs yet anyway. I had remembered my mother stapling huge sheets of cardboard to the walls of an unfinished house we were living in growing up so I followed her example. Yes, I've lived this scenario before.- A word to the wise, don't marry a carpenter/ adventurous type. They are convinced that their families are much tougher and more capable than everyone else. At least this has been my experience. I can smile about it now, but at the time I had some serious issues with being cold.-
The week we moved not only was it below zero, I had contracted a terrible case of the flu. I was miserable. Along with it all, I had feelings of great dislike toward my husband. -yes, I've since gotten over it- I survived the cold air, by sleeping in the recliner chair, next to the stove and filling it every hour. This became my job and still is. It seemed that the rest of the adults in the house never felt the temperature change when the fire would start to die down. I did. I knew exactly when it was time to add wood without ever opening the stove door. We dressed in layers during the day and around the stove it really wasn't too bad. Chilly, cold even, but doable. I love, how I can say that in past tense now! These are still not fond memories, but it wouldn't be a true story if I left this part out.
Spring is slow in coming when you are counting on it the most! It does finally show up though and all the winter blues fade into the background, with the explosion that is spring in the Southern Appalachians. Green is bursting into life everywhere. It just pops free, as if it's been holding back for weeks, just waiting for that unseen sign that seems to say "its time!" Rather melodramatic I know, but you see, winter and I just have not made our peace. I keep thinking this year, "I'll be friends with it and accept it as just another wonderful season" and every year just before those first warm days arrive, I feel as if I have 'fought a huge battle' and come out battered and bruised. But, a winner none the less.
Spring did finally arrive and with it a whole new problem. Mud. Red clay. This is serious stuff and not to be taken lightly. I wonder if it couldn't actually suck you in to the point of needing some forceful leverage to remove you from the 'miry pit' you find your self in. It gives a new meaning to the
bible verse....He brought me out of the miry clay....there is also a
hymn with those same words and I will never again be able to sing it without thinking of the sticky, goopy, even dangerous red clay that now surrounded our house. There wasn't a blade of grass left in the "yard". After all the digging of footers, septic system and water lines that had gone on the previous fall. We were simply trapped in a sea of red. It tracked in and I was sweeping and mopping it up all the time. It stained the unfinished flooring an orange color. I think I may have actually shed a few tears of frustration over it. It became easier to deal with, as spring was finally here. Life was good. We would keep advancing, keep building, keep improving, moving forward towards the goal we had set in our sights.
Isn't that what you do in life? It's easy for me to look back and see how far we've come. To have a better perspective than I did when I was right in the middle of it. Which is why I've deliberately chosen to write realistically about this time in our lives. It was hard and those who write about these things without this aspect are simply not quite being honest. We all have trials in life. Jesus, himself said : "In this world you will have tribulation." And we do indeed.
We also have great joy and He has given us so much to live for. Family and friends top the list. We all have those moments in time when we see something so beautiful that is takes our breath away. These things are there, if we choose to look for them. For years, I closed my eyes to these things and hid in my disappointment with my life. It was by choice, that I finally decided to
see, hear and smell the goodness that surrounded me. Moments like sitting in the upstairs of our empty house with a fresh cool breeze blowing, listening to the sound of rain on a tin roof, with the man of my life. Words are unnecessary at these moments, just a silent whispered prayer of pure gratitude and a request to somehow 'never let me forget this'.... If we could just find a way to live in those moments.
