My Happy Place - Building

So many of the things I love to do have their roots in traditions passed down generation to generation.  Sewing, cooking (especially jams and preserves), knitting, gardening - whenever I work at them I think of the many people before me through the ages that have performed those same tasks.  There's a peace to working at them and a satisfaction in their completion.  A quilt to warm my family, plum sauce to fill their stomachs or a beanie to keep them warm.

In comparison much of my work in my day job is relatively meaningless.  I write briefs for the Minister, letters to the public, apply the law in interesting situations the drafter of the legislation surely never even dreamed of and at the end of the day I feel like I've done nothing.  The same sort of things will wait for me tomorrow and the day after that and no matter how long I work at it I will have no discernible impact on the world other than a bunch of really annoyed people who did not appreciate the circuitous route I took to tell them gently that they're quite ignorant/crazy/misinformed/criminal.*

But working with my hands always produces something I can hold, something I can quantify and I know it has lasting meaning.  And that is never so true as it is for building.  Building is my passion.  It is my happy place.  I love the mental exercise of designing something in my head and using my hands and brain to bring it into being.  It is maths, inspiration, sweat and ancient tradition all in one.  People have been building probably for longer than they have been doing anything else.**  Way back so long ago that no one remembers people left their caves and decided they could live in a field without necessarily getting rained on and dying of hypothermia at regular intervals.  Building was born and we've been simply refining the technique ever since.

It's come a long way since those early wattle and daub days but much of how we build now has deep roots in the past.  Medieval castles sported the accumulated knowledge of the ages in flying buttresses, arches and other assorted structural ideas and that was the start of big things.  Almost everything we see in modern building is tied to those times.  Look at the language!  Joist, noggan, bearer, purlin, rafter, beam, lintel! My husband, literally the smartest man I know - a man who knows so many big words that his speech is around 5% acronyms - is forever saying things like, "You know, that really big piece of timber that's meant to across those...whaddya call 'em?  Posts!"  These terms are relics from the birth of modern building but we still use them.***

With respect to my own experience with building and renovating, I'm onto my fourth house now.  I can't help but buy fixer-uppers and, when I do, I always promise myself that as soon as I get it looking the way I want I'll sit still for a while and enjoy it.  I did not get to my fourth major renovation project by adhering to this theory.  Fortunately I am aided and abetted in my building endeavors by my willing husband.  When we first met he was skeptical.  Unconvinced that I would finish projects, not sure that I had the ability - doubtful that there would be any pay off.  All that changed with the building of a pergola attached to our little mobile home.  Three weeks of activity and then years of bliss out under the shade of the grape vine.  Husband = converted.

At first he was more than willing for me to do  it on my own.  "Do you think we can build a laundry" really meant, "I'll buy all necessary tools and materials but please build me a laundry".  But that's not really how my man works.  Because he knows that anything I can do he can do better by relentlessly questioning me and proving that he knows a better way.  Since those early days where he watched in amazement while I banged it together his love of working with his hands has seen him get more involved with each project.

Our latest building escapade is a fort for the kiddies and a pergola with deck for us.  We're well and truly into it now and I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is the first building project I've ever conducted where I really feel that Charles is a partner and not just an annoying part of the system of checks and balances I have to satisfy before I'm allowed to drill anything.  It's true, he's had to adapt to my method of building.  A treated pine pergola over an existing paved area is not going to sport the engineering accuracy the Opera House enjoyed and that Charles clearly prefers.  I also swear like a sailor while building, something I learned along with all the medieval terminology.  And despite all my previous experience, my building is nowhere near perfect.  I occasionally still "learn the hard way" which is secret builder's code for fucking up.

But building is fun.  It's passion, joy and life.  Having Charles by my side is the icing on my treated pine cake.  Stay tuned for a how-to and some photos of our work in progress.  And hopefully a finished product.  Eventually.

*  I won't go into some of the people I've come across but let's just say that when I eventually leave the employ of the government there will be an almighty blog post that no one should miss.

**Okay so we can probably conclude that people were eating, drinking, having sex and fighting for a long time before they started building.  And hunting.  Gathering.  Whatever.

***The majority of building terminology comes out of the 1300s and 1400s - largely because that's when buildings were reaching grander scales and needed joists, purlins, bearers as well as a common language that the builders would understand.  Fortunately we've dumbed down a lot of the language and use terms that state the obvious. Joist hangers, triple grips, griplock nails, etc.

PS While I do love building and renovating, there are some things that I will never, ever do again.  And one of those things is bathrooms.  See the photos below for my very recent total bathroom makeover in the house we just sold - right down to replacing the floor and walls under the tiles.  I will never, ever do another bathroom again as long as I live.  No other project has ever made me cry - repeatedly - to say nothing of losing all the skin on my fingers during the grouting process.  Yes it looked amazing and yes it was cheap ($3,000 for the whole lot vs $15,000 minimum quote) but it was JUST NOT WORTH IT.