Under Construction

the fruits of one man's

with

Wood

When we bought this little house in the mountains we knew we'd need more room than it could give us. A kitchen would be nice, for starters, maybe even one equipped with a double gas range and double ovens.

And a bathroom big enough for the two of us, for seconds.
Maybe a wrap-around porch too, for entertaining all the new friends we'd make from among the assorted rednecks, hillbillies, clansmen, grad students, and rural folk scattered across our hills and valleys.

We took afternoon drives looking for ideas and indigenous architecture to plagiarize. Trailers, sure, loads of them, and not quite the aesthetic we wanted. Lots of older homes and many log cabins; still, nothing really spoke to us. Add to it that our neighbours, scattered though they were, made no effort to introduce themselves and there we were, on our own.

One harmless morning Marcella announced what fun it might be to stake out the area our new kitchen might occupy. We grabbed some stakes, surveyor's flagging, the tape measure, and our favourite hot beverages and took to the grass. I spooled out the tape to the ten-foot mark, the width I'd figured for the kitchen.

"Why'd ya stop there?" M asked. "Why not go four feet further?"

So I did. Then she suggested another four feet. Then another. This continued until we were on the verge of doubling our square footage.

"How hard would it be to build a second story?" M asked. "I mean, you've already got most of it built already in the form of the first floor, right?"

"Well", I mumbled, "sort of."

"Let's just imagine we're gonna build a second floor. All-in-all it wouldn't be that much more work, would it?"

"Well", I hemmed, "sort of."

And so it began. Over the following months we designed and revised the plans a dozen times until we hit on nearly our dream home, given that we already had a small, awkward house to somehow incorporate. I reckoned I'd do as much of the work myself as possible and then hire out some local toughs to lend a hand when things became unmanageable. You know the sort: raised on loading hay bales and gunpowder,

perfect for the task. Strange though, because when I finally faced the unmanageable I turned within instead of without and devised reckless and asinine methods of achieving the impossible. Maybe I had worked alone for too long to even know how to ask for help anymore; maybe my Mick ancestors simply channeled their Neolithic energy into my bulging muscles and fueled me to Herculean glory.

Maybe.

At least that's what I told myself as I teetered between success and death!!

Here follows my progress to date.

Enjoy the story!