Home Sweet Home - Part 2

                “This is it,” I told my dad as we climbed out of the car and entered the woods.  Our breath rose in dense clouds around us before being swept away by the biting wind.  A powdery snow blanketed the ground, and the wind chill stood at a bone chilling 13 below zero, yet Dad had dutifully accompanied me to the lot to look it over.  The property was a 1.5 acre patch of woods in an older neighborhood marked by varied architecture (the land being divided at various intervals over time, avoiding the cookie-cutter idea of row upon row of similar houses) and mature trees.  Although it was located well within the town limits, one felt as if he were away from the hustle and bustle of urban life and was nestled in a quiet country woods when entering its boundaries. 

The street in front of our home

                It was a property we had passed often on afternoon walks when my wife and I would venture a little farther from home to seek its shady, winding lanes.  It was one of two undeveloped tracts left in the area.  The original land owner had kept sections in reserve in the hopes her children might someday build there; however, when it was obvious they would live elsewhere, she released them for sale piecemeal.  This particular lot had actually gone through multiple owners, but none had taken the steps to build on it.  Sara and I had been looking for land for months in hopes of building our dream home, and although this was much smaller than the five or more acres I desired, it was too good to pass up. 

Whitelick Creek cutting through our backyard

                The lot itself was a long, narrow, wooded tract transected by a large creek in the back.  The deep ravine carved by the flowing water and the isolated land on the other side probably accounted for one third of the acreage, but it still left us with a wooded acre on which to build.  The front corner was public easement and had already been cleared and had an established “lawn.”   Dad and I stomped our feet to warm ourselves, as we stood at the back of the property, looking out over the frozen creek and the old fishing lake on the property behind us.  I had images of a cozy cabin tucked neatly into these trees, and I could see myself lugging in armfuls of wood on days such as this to stoke a crackling fire inside.  In reality, the end result would in no way resemble that dream, but I had not gotten that far in my thinking.  Dad liked the area and thought it was a worthwhile investment for us, and that was all the encouragement I needed.  Sara and I would make an offer.

                Unlike my icy trip to the property to get my father’s approval, Sara was literally sweating when we showed up to sign the papers.  She was battling a 103^o fever, but since we were anxious to get that step behind us, she wasn’t about to let a flu bug stop her.  I felt like a land barren as we signed the mountain of banking and real estate forms, resulting in our owning two properties.  We were mere mites on the scale of landowners, but I enjoyed talking about the home I lived in and the “land” we owned nearby.  It sounded more like a Texas cattle ranch when phrased that way rather than the small, residential lot it was.   And for now, that was just how it was to remain – an undeveloped, residential lot.  I was in the final years of buying into a veterinary practice, and although we could afford the land, building a house was simply out of the question.  We would ultimately wait another four, long years before we could break ground.

My daughter could barely walk when we bought the land.

                There were those who doubted our patience in waiting to build, but we were disciplined and (more importantly) poor, so we succeeded.  However, the small parcel still required maintenance, so each week I would push my lawnmower the half mile from our home to the lot to mow the small patch of grass.  In the fall, I would mulch the leaves and carry them to the back to dump over the hillside.  It literally took longer to walk my mower there than it took to do the work, but I enjoyed my time there.  On Sunday mornings in the spring, I would walk to the back of the woods to watch for migrating warblers or to spy what life might be stirring along the creek’s banks.  On one of my very first visits I looked up and saw what I suspected was a vulture circling overhead.  Grabbing my binoculars and gazing upwards, I quickly focused on the dark form.  Instead of the expected turkey vulture, I immediately noticed this bird had a white head and tail – a mature bald eagle!  I knew then that this was where I was meant to be.  It was my own private escape, and I reveled in my time alone in its quiet recesses. 

Four years later we begin the build.

The years ticked by and my debt to the clinic grew smaller and smaller.  We finally allowed ourselves to think about our future home.  Every few weeks, Sara would return from the store with a new stack of house plan books.  We would devour them, looking at the esthetics of the enclosed homes, their footprint (knowing ours was a narrow lot,) and their general layout.  We would each mark the ones that caught our fancy, and then we would exchange books and review the other’s choices.  In doing so we learned that our tastes in design trended along the same line.    Month after month we continued, but one plan which had appeared in multiple books kept catching our attention.  Finally, it was featured in a magazine, complete with photos of the constructed home, and we were hooked.  This was the house for us.  It would need some modifications to the floor plan, but it had the look we wanted and a layout that seemed very livable. 

The plans that won our hearts

Next came the home tours to pick a builder.  My wife and I have particular tastes, so we wanted a custom builder not some mass producer of homes.  On Sundays we could be found touring the various model homes sizing up the quality of the materials used as well as the workmanship.  My wife started taking suggestions from coworkers and friends who had built, and soon one general contractor stood above the rest.  Bob Craig built quality homes and was known for not cutting corners and for coming in within budget.  We started limiting our tours to only his homes and were even able to speak to some of his clients.  It was always the same – a beautifully built home and a happy owner who reported that Bob was a stickler for detail and focused on quality.  

Armed with a map of our lot and the magazine showing the plans we liked, we scheduled a meeting with Bob.  He had the requisite contractor beard and ruddy complexion, but more importantly he had a pleasant demeanor that quickly put us at ease.  Equally important, he was available to take on the job the following spring.  He didn’t sugar coat things, and let us know up front that the type of house we wanted was going to cost a pretty substantial amount of money, but he thought we could swing it.  To proceed, we would need several sets of plans which he could submit to the various subcontractors for quotes, after which we would meet again to discuss final figures and schedules.   We were put in contact with Nick, a nearby architect, and after a few meetings, we had before us the plans showing our future home.  How exciting it was to see the small floor plan we had found in the magazine take shape into a fully fleshed out home.  We had seen a couple of photos of the magazine version of the house, but we had never seen what each and every side would look like.  I love just about any architectural drawing, but when it is your dream house it is even more special.  Once all the bids came in and we slashed a few things here and there, we signed off on those plans, paid our builder the initial $10,000 and the seven month roller coaster of building a home began.

There are innumerable decisions one must make when building a house, and at times it can seem overwhelming.  There were the decisions over the original design such as giving up a bathroom and closet for an upstairs laundry, changing the original laundry into a mudroom, turning a bedroom into a library, determining the width of hallways, deciding to switch out two small windows for one larger window in each bedroom or switching a small, leaded glass window above the garden tub for a larger one, deciding if there should be a deck and if so how big and should the boards run horizontally or diagonally, to have a chimney or not, to have a cupola or not, do we add built-in book cases, swinging or pocket doors in narrow spaces, finish the basement now or later, should we have an egress window and if so where should it go in the basement, how high should the ceilings be, and the list goes on and on.  Before he could even get bids, Bob asked us to decide how we wanted the house clad (it became brick on the lower half and clapboards above,) what brick color we wanted, what style and color of shingles we wanted, and I believe we had even picked out exterior paint colors.  Along the way we would sit with the carpenter and design cabinetry, pick out the type of wood, the color of the stain, the style of doors and the type of hardware as well as the counter surfaces.  We would make trips to pick out sinks, tubs and toilets, faucets and towel racks, shower units, light fixtures, the gas fireplace, the surrounding tile, carpeting, hardwood and vinyl flooring, blinds for the windows, closet systems, and appliances.  We had walkthroughs with an electrician choosing where we wanted outlets, where to place the recessed lights and where to place speakers and whether there would be wall mounted controls for them.  On any given day, the head framing contractor might stop us and ask if we wanted the staircase moved back to allow more room in the foyer, or how did we want him to finish off the ceiling above the plant shelf, or any number of minor adjustments.  We had been warned that this period would be stressful and one of the most difficult stretches of our marriage, but that could not have been more wrong.  We loved our little field trips to pick out items, and since our tastes seemed to match, making those choices was generally very easy.  In fact, once the house was completed, we went through a period of withdrawal from not having more decisions to make.   To us, this was our dream house and making those choices was akin to creating your Christmas list each year as a child. 
 

This is not to say there were not stresses during the build.  One of the first issues was our septic system.  We had purchased a wooded lot with the idea of living tucked away in a grove of trees.  In reality, the neighborhood is without sewer and water, which meant we needed a well and septic system.  To insure a well-functioning septic for years to come, we did not want to try to weave fingers among the trees, so this meant the woods we loved so much would have to be cleared.  (It was ironic that we paid a pretty penny to get a lot full of trees only to face the added expense of having to have most of them removed and their stumps ground out.)  It was a precarious time for such an endeavor.  The year’s end was nearing, and the county had just passed more stringent regulations regarding septic systems which were to take effect after January 1.  The net result was that septic fields would be much larger, and there was a very real possibility we would not even be able to fit one on our property. As long as we got the plans approved before the first of the year, we could avoid the new regulations, but our engineer was dragging his feet despite our phone calls urging him along.  Bob, our general contractor, placed a call and used his own form of “urging” and the ball started rolling.  It had already been difficult on paper to place the septic on our property and retain any trees at all.  We at first thought we could move the house back and place the septic system in the front.  This could save the two grand beech trees that perfectly framed the back of our back property, as well as several other large, old trees.  However, the engineer called and said putting it in the front would mean losing every single tree in front of the house.  Desirous of our privacy, we knew that that would not work for us, so we shifted the house forward and looked at the backyard.  The engineer left us saying, “I will make it fit.”  However, in a phone call the following day he told us it would fit, but we would now lose all trees to the creek.  My heart was breaking since I had walked those woods for four years dreaming of the day I could sit back in my easy chair and look out my windows at this little wooded patch.  We even went as far as to investigate an alternative septic system which reportedly could reduce the leaching field to half the area of a typical system.  We had never heard of this and could find no one who had used it to get feedback.  Our builder, being even more skeptical, strongly discouraged us, so we went with a traditional septic system located behind the house.  Here is where we discovered it helps to have friends in high places.  When we took our plans to the Board of Health for review, my wife realized she knew the woman at the desk.  We explained our concerns and she said, “Let’s take a look at your plans.”  I had always thought the size of the leaching field was based on the number of bathrooms, but in actuality it is based on the number of bedrooms and large tubs.  She asked me, “How large is that tub?” as she pointed to the kids’ bath.  I told her it was a 60-70 gallon tub.  “We won’t count that then.  Are there any closets in this library?” and I replied that there were not.  “Then we won’t count that, either.”  She went on to add that if we left off closet doors in the playroom, it could also be excluded.  (I guess it is considered a bedroom if you have a closet with doors.)  In the end, what had been regarded as a five bedroom home was suddenly downsized to a three bedroom home.  The engineer called us the next day sounding very happy and saying the field was over-designed for the new designation and the leaching field had been reduced by about 40%.  In the end, we still lost a huge portion of our trees in the back (including the majestic beeches) but we could keep enough to feel “woodsy” and to screen us from the road and neighbors. 

My beautiful woods reduced to an open lot

 The trees themselves were a major stressor on me.  As I’ve repeated several times, I got the property to live in the woods, but it was becoming quickly apparent that would not be the case.  Not only was there the septic field (which we later learned needed a drain around the perimeter, so trees had to be cleared another 10-20 feet on all sides) but also a house with the necessary setbacks to allow construction, a driveway and access for utilities.  The driveway was a big concern because its best approach took it very close to the largest and most picturesque trees in the front.  We hired an arborist to come out and look things over and tell us what he thought.  He said so much of the root structure would be damaged that the trees would likely die, so they should just be removed up front.  I could not accept this, and when I later discovered there had once been a gravel road running along that very path (providing access to an early gravel pit,) he reluctantly said we could try to save most of them.  We still had to take down one large old maple, but the other maples as well as the beautiful, glistening white sycamore could remain.  Ten years later, only one tree has died and required removal, and that was only two years ago, so I suspect it died of other causes.  I nearly had tears in my eyes the day I had to walk the property and mark all trees slated for removal with fluorescent paint.  I could not even bring myself to mark the two large beeches, and even the tree guys hesitated before removing them.  On more than one occasion they asked me if those trees really had to come out.  The sad and unfortunate truth was that there was no way they could be saved despite all of our wishes.

One day while the trees were being removed, I got a call at work from the woman living next door to our lot.  It appeared that in clearing the trees, the workmen had uncovered a group of baby barred owls who were not yet fully fledged.  They were on the ground and she was very worried about them.  I was unable to get free, but we were able to contact a wildlife rehabber who said if we could catch the owls, she could come by the clinic and pick them up.  So I sent two of my technicians to round them up.  As they pulled up and began searching for the owls, it began to pour rain.  Wet but determined, they continued their search, but they found the baby owls to be rather formidable foes as they tried to catch them.  The birds were quick at scurrying under trailers or fallen logs, and when approached they made a very disturbing hissing sound while clacking their beaks.  The rain was really coming down now and the technicians thought it had begun lightening, but when they turned around the flashes of light turned out to be camera flashes from the crowd of neighbors that had gathered to watch them.  In the end, my staff was undaunted and returned to the clinic with three, angry, hissing down-covered chicks.  The rehabber picked them up a couple hours later, and although she promised to let me know how they did, I never learned their fate.

Digging the well.

The well was another hair-pulling moment for us.  With the entire backyard being required for septic and laws naturally requiring a significant separation between septic systems and the source of drinking water, the well’s location was limited to a relatively small area.  Utilities ran through part of this smaller section, limiting us even more.  The well man chose a spot in our side yard beyond the drive to drill.  After digging only 47 feet they hit water, but the flow was poor, so he continued on.  At 127 feet they hit soapstone, which according to him was the stopping spot when digging a well.  A new location had to be found.  The front corner was out of the question because it was public easement.  At one point, I saw the driller with a divining rod walking the property “witching” for water.  The rod dipped in one area, but it was too close to the house for drilling.  In the end, he was pretty much limited to one corner of the front woods, and we held our breath the next day as he started anew.  Thankfully, only 67 feet down, he hit a descent flow of water giving us an “average” but functioning well.

Basement is dug during dry weather, but rain is on the way!

Water was a problem in another form, as well.  The bane of any construction site is rain, and our home was to be no exception.  Friday, June 16^th was to be the day they poured our basement.  The recent rains had left the ground muddy, and the trucks, which were on site before 7:30 that morning were sinking deeply in the muck.  As the last truck was dumping its load of cement, the skies opened up and unleashed a downpour of biblical proportions.  In total about three inches of rain dropped in a very short period of time.  Sara was there as the concrete man dejectedly called our builder.  It appeared they had two options - they could let the concrete set up then jackhammer it out and pour it all over again or do their best and later come back with a 2 inch skim layer to even it out.  The latter option was chosen as the lesser of two evils, and the concrete man left mumbling about the $1000 the morning had just cost him.  He drove over to our builder’s office to commiserate and while sitting there he happened to look at the weather radar on Bob’s computer.  Miraculously, there was a hole in the precipitation that was just about to appear over our area.  His crew hopped back into their trucks and rushed to the site.  I still don’t know how they did it, but they managed to remove the extraneous water and finish off the basement floor.  Thank goodness they did because over the next week, an additional six inches of rain fell.  I give the building of our house credit for ending the drought in Indiana that summer.  Nearly a week and a half later, construction resumed, but not without tractors getting mired down in the wet, muddy clay that was now our property.  Rain would be a constant foe throughout the first half of the build.  At one point, the rains were so heavy and so persistent that the framer started drilling holes in the floor to allow the pooling water to drain to the basement below.  Many weekends were spent working with a large squeegee, moving water to the sump pump in the basement.

Rain and mud

An amusing but embarrassing incident happened shortly after the basement was poured but before any framing was in place.  My wife and I made it a practice of visiting the build site every day, and one evening we were walking around the foundation looking at the progress.  I wanted so much to get a feel for the size of the basement, but I just couldn’t relate by looking from above.  Finally, I just could not resist the temptation and finding a lower section near the egress window, I jumped down to explore.  It was so fun walking around our future basement, and I realized the space felt so much larger when I was actually in it.  What I had not considered, however, when jumping into the basement was how I was to get back out.  I thought I could retrace my path, but try as I may, my aging body could not jump high enough to clear the wall.  Time after time, I stepped back across the basement, took a running start and jumped to grab the wall and climb out.  My feet would scrape along the wall for a moment or two, and then I would fall back into the basement.  Sara was walking the perimeter trying to be a cheerleader and coax me out, but it was little help.  To my great embarrassment, a friendly face suddenly peered over the side and said, “Would you like me to get a ladder?”  It was our future next door neighbor and she had noticed my dilemma.  Sheepishly, I agreed that would be a good idea, and soon I was out of the hole.  Never again did I attempt to explore the basement until there was an official staircase in place.

This cut out for the crawl space was to be one of my escape routes, but I failed.

 But building was not all stress and bad luck.  For us, the summer spent watching our house rise was better than any vacation we could have ever taken.  I would stop each morning before work, check in again at lunch, and we would return as a family in the evenings to inspect each day’s progress.  On many mornings my wife would arrive with a batch of doughnuts and orange juice to keep the workers happy, and we developed a very good relationship with all the subs.  We were interested in what was going on, but we never tried to be bossy or demanding.  If we had a question we would bring it to the attention of Bob and let him deal with it.  We were not about to call out a sub and turn him against us, and I think everyone involved found us an easy couple to build for.  

Rebecca dances while David plays on the Lull

Taking in the view from my future library

 It is such a joy to watch your home rise board by board and brick by brick.  I can remember how once the first floor was completely framed, my wife, who has a much better sense of spatial arrangements than me, walked me through the house trying to point out each room.  The framing of the second floor was even more exciting because for the first time, I could see the beautiful and expansive view that would greet me from my library.  My wife is deathly afraid of heights, but with me and the main framer encouraging her, she managed to nervously climb the ladder to explore the upper floor with me.  My parents also made several visits, and although she was starting to have difficulties, my mother was still able to walk in those days, albeit slowly and with some instability.  Determined to see my developing home, she literally crawled along the gangplank that carried us up to the front door. 

Walls are going up.

"Wow!  It is really starting to look like a house."

Siding goes on

As it took shape, the house seemed so massive compared to the small homes we had previously occupied.  I had a hard time believing this was to truly be our house, but my pride rose with every new addition to the structure.  Building a house is a misleading adventure.  Initially, the house quickly shoots up as framers erect the skeleton of the structure and start closing it in.  I can remember how my wife said, “Wow!  It is really starting to look like a house!”  It was an exclamation she would repeat with each new phase whether it was closing in the framing, sheathing the sides, hanging drywall or painting, but she was right in that each of these phases was one step closer to our finished home.  However, there came a time in the construction that really tried our patience.  After the hustle and bustle and rapid metamorphosis of the framing, it seemed like progress slowed to a crawl.  Electricians running wire, heating and cooling guys placing ducts and plumbers laying pipes were all essential steps, but visually little changed in the house.  Insulation came next, and I can remember watching the insulation crew working on a hot Labor Day morning blowing insulation into the walls and caulking every little crack and seam of our home.  Then came the drywall which thankfully seemed to move the interior along much as the framing had moved the exterior along earlier, but even this process took longer than I had expected.  That’s when we entered the even slower period of trim carpentry and painting.   Bob had difficulty even finding an available trim carpenter, but eventually one was hired, although he was working on another home at the same time.  The painters were busy staining and lacquering all the eventual woodwork, but the carpenter would not always show up to do his part.  However, despite his frequent absences, we watched the trim go in little by little, the doors hung and the staircase take shape.  Trim carpentry is detail oriented and very exacting, so it moves along at a frustratingly slow pace.  We were getting itchy to move into our new home, but it just seemed like construction was stagnant.  Regardless of our impatience, the job did progress and soon the cabinets were being installed and the flooring laid.  Bob warned us that although the house was looking finished, we were still weeks away from moving in.

Brick going on

 To be concluded in my next entry.

Rebecca checking our her future bedroom.

Home Sweet Home, part 1

            I was caught off guard the other day when my wife reminded me that this December marks our 11^th year in our “new” home.  It doesn’t seem possible because to me it is still just that- a new home.  I know better than that, however.  I can look around and see the scuffed woodwork, the dented walls, the faded and oxidized house lights and the cracked concrete on the drive, but her spirit still feels young.  We lived in our prior house for nearly 13 years, and that house always had the feel of an older home.  It was probably about 15-20 years old when we purchased it, and the bold flooring, the harvest gold appliances and the dark paneling definitely marked it as from a prior era.  I’m sure there are many who would walk through our current house and comment on the polished brass fixtures and textured ceilings and find it out-dated, as well, but for us, this will always be our dream home.

            Sara and I were married in 1987.  It was our first year out of college, and I had just taken a job as a small animal veterinarian in Brownsburg, a bedroom community west of Indianapolis and halfway between my Indianapolis family and Sara’s home in Danville.  I spent the first month or two making the 45 minute drive from my parents’ home to work each day, but as the wedding neared, Sara and I decided it was time we should start looking for a home.  We found a nice little double that had just been built only a few minutes from the clinic, and so I moved in for a couple months of bachelor life until Sara joined me after our wedding in August.  The duplex was small but suited our needs quite well.  There was a small patio where we could hang a feeder and watch birds, or grill out on a summer afternoon.  There was a lawn service which, although they didn’t live up to my demanding standards, was a nice perk given I did not yet own a lawn mower.  A washer and dryer were tucked into a small closet in the kitchen, but it spared us trips to a laundromat.  Furniture was sparse.  Being dirt poor, we did not purchase any of our own; instead we relied upon gifts and hand-me-downs.  My sister was clearing out everything she owned in preparation of pulling up roots and moving to the Caribbean, and so we became the beneficiaries of her couch and several small tables.  Knowing we liked the look of antique furniture, my parents bought us a bedroom suite in the waterfall style.  I recall it was of the fashion that had adorned my Grandparent Fifer’s bedroom.  My Grandmother Hayden’s dining room table and chairs, along with her desk, rounded out our décor.  It was stark, as were our finances, but we were quite happy there.  

            A year later we decided we could afford the down payment on a small house of our own, and so the hunt was on.  We looked at a few in the area.  Most that caught our attention were well beyond our financial means, and some of the ones we could afford had seen their better days.  Then one day my wife spotted a notice in the paper of a house that was “for sale by owner” and the seller was returning to town for one day to show the house.  That evening we stopped by and toured the 3-bedroom ranch with the nice lawn and mature trees.    The house was everything we were looking for.  Its size was perfect for a starter home, and the layout was just what we had been seeking.  There was a family room opening into a small dining room that was visible from the kitchen.  Although outdated in appearance, the kitchen had working appliances and a convenient layout.  A small living room greeted you as you entered, and tucked away in the corner was a fireplace, something I had always wanted.  The bedrooms were comparable to what I had grown up with, and the master bedroom had its own bathroom and shower, which was a luxury I had never known.  Sliding doors opened from the family room onto a small wooden deck and a spacious backyard led to a small park with playground equipment.  My only disappointment was that it lacked a basement, a feature I had always had and appreciated because of Indiana tornadoes, but there was ample storage space in the attic above, and we would just take our chances with storms.  

The aged paneling and the hand-me-down dining room set

We were smitten and knew we had to have this house; however, another couple about our age was also touring and looking interested.  The home had been on the market some time already, and I knew the owner was motivated to sell since they had relocated to Illinois.  My wife immediately wanted to offer above the asking price, but I put the brakes on that idea.  We were afraid the other couple might also be interested, so we made a verbal bid for the asking price before we left.  The next day my wife contacted a real estate attorney to draw up an official bid proposal, and this was promptly submitted.  Our suspicions about the other couple turned out to be well-founded as we were told that they too had made an offer, and so began the anxious period of waiting for a reply.  A couple days later, the seller contacted us with a counter proposal.  They said they would accept our bid if we would handle a few additional closing costs.  Being rookies in the game, we immediately agreed to their terms (fees we should never have been expected to pay, but we REALLY wanted that house) and the bid was accepted. 

Our duplex was only a few blocks away, and in the evenings my wife and I would walk through the empty fields and willow thickets that then bordered the neighborhood (urban sprawl has now replaced these wild areas with housing additions) just to go and sit on the deck and look out on our future backyard.  At that time of day, the setting sun struck the earth at an angle throwing long shadows and revealing the topography of the yard.  The lawn had a gentle, rolling nature that dipped into a back corner.  Birds sang from high in the large poplars that towered over the backyard, and occasionally a rabbit could be seen nibbling in the shade.  It was such a pastoral scene, and we could not have been happier.

The back deck

            The move was simple enough.  We piled our meager furnishings into the back of my father’s pick-up truck and traveled the few blocks to our new home.  With Dad and me doing the moving and Sara and my mother doing the unpacking and arranging, we had everything moved in and stowed away by lunchtime.  

            We were still too poor to do any wholesale renovations, so the house got a good top to bottom scrubbing and my retired father volunteered his time to paint all the rooms, but nothing more was done.  Over the next few years we started working to make the house more our own.  One of the first projects to tackle was the driveway.  The aging blacktop was sunken in the middle and cracked.  No longer would splashing a sealer on it each year hide its flaws, so our first significant cash outlay as home owners was to have it repaved.  

The asphalt company came out to look and found that the drive was lined on each side by bricks which were half buried in the dirt and sod.  They suggested removing these for a stronger edge, and so I began prying up brick after brick.  When I was done, I was left with a stack of bricks with which I didn’t know what to do.  I decided to create a little half moon garden against the back of the house and use the bricks to form an inner walkway.  The result was an attractive little flower bed with perennials in the center and various herbs around the outside.  Other than making teas from some of the mints, I found we did not make full use of the herbs, although Maynard, the neighbor’s roaming cat, soon discovered the catnip and spent his days rolling in my plants.  The next year, the herbs were abandoned for salvia in rows of red, white and blue, and since they reached their peak bloom around the 4^th of July, it made a very patriotic show.

Looking down on the backyard.  Perennials and lilac bushes.

            With home ownership comes the duty of maintenance and repairs.  Some come into this job well-equipped, having been born with a curious nature that encouraged them to watch their parents do odd jobs about the house, or lured them to the neighbor’s home whenever they were tinkering with something.  I think we’ve all seen the little boy who can always spot the neighbor’s legs sticking out from under their car or find them standing on a ladder, only to suddenly appear at their side asking, “Whatcha doin’?” Over the years they’ve asked questions, purchased tools and honed their skills.  And then there was Sara and I.  I had never felt a great urge to interfere with my father’s work around our house growing up.  He seemed more than up to the job without my aid, and I usually had more important things to do like ride my bike or play on the swing.  So when the time came to start working on our new home, I was like a fish out of water.  

Never was this more evident than when I decided to install shoe molding around the bathroom.  After living in our home for a few years, we had saved up enough money to replace the boldly patterned, ugly, stained carpeting in the kitchen with bright, clean vinyl.  Since we were making the plunge, we also picked out vinyl to replace the carpeting that the previous owners had placed in the bathrooms.  The thick carpeting in the bathrooms meant there was no shoe molding around the base, a problem which I took upon myself to remedy.   The prepared home owner would have gone to his workshop and set up his table saw, or at the very least, would have grabbed a miter saw and miter box.  I lacked every component of this equation.  Instead, I armed myself with a yardstick, a large, wieldy crosscut saw, an old, plastic high school protractor and a big box of Tide to act as my workbench.  Rather than a workshop, Sara and I set up on the driveway on a warm summer’s evening.  Having already stained and sealed the supply of quarter round, it was simply a matter of measuring and cutting.  Carefully, I would measure the length of the wall, then go out to the driveway and transfer the measurement onto the back of a piece of molding.  Taking my protractor, I would then plot out a 45^o angle, mark it with a pencil, set the piece of wood up on the detergent box and start cutting away with the big saw.  Sounds quite simple really, but in practice I could not pull it off.  I had a very big problem with inside and outside angles.  I think maybe it was in flipping my quarter round over to lay out my angles that I got turned around, but whenever I would bring a piece back to the bathroom to install it, the piece was either too short or rather than meeting at a nice point on an outside corner, it would create a gaping, V-shaped void.  Over and over I would go back to the bathroom, re-measure the wall and “carefully” transfer that measurement to the wood.  Sara and I would discuss the angle, and confident we had it right this time, I would mark and cut the wood then proudly return to the bathroom to find I had again gotten it exactly backwards.  As darkness fell and we worked in the dim pool of light thrown off by the open garage door, we could hardly complete the job because we were paralyzed by fits of laughter and our eyes were clouded by tears.  However, we persevered and in the end the molding was installed, albeit a little imperfectly.  

            The main bathroom proved to be a bigger problem than just shoe molding.  Tiles in the shower of the master bath had started coming off the walls, so we moved to the hall bath to take our showers.  However, a moisture issue had always seemed to plague us in that room.  One day when I found a three inch mushroom growing from the wall, I knew it was time to call in the professionals.  While waiting for our master bath to be repaired, we stopped showering altogether, resorting to leisurely baths instead.  It would be several years before we finally tackled the hall bath by hiring a handyman to strip the walls around the tub and retile that portion of the room.  

It was during this bathroom remodel that our cat, Dusty, disappeared one day.  He was never allowed outside, and I had turned the house upside down looking for him, but to no avail.  My only conclusion was that he had gotten into the bathroom and jumped through the open studs into the crawlspace below the house.  I am very claustrophobic and couldn’t bring myself to wriggle into that narrow space and slide around looking for my cat, so I cajoled the carpenter into doing it for me.  He was no more a fan of crawlspaces than me, but he dutifully made his way through the spider webs, mummified birds and dead mice, army crawling through the bowels of the crawlspace.  Meanwhile, our cat lazily strolled into the living room with a look on his face like, “What’s up guys?”  To this day, I have never figured out where he was hiding, and I stood red-faced as I told the dirt-covered carpenter, struggling to pull himself free of the crawlspace entry, that the cat had miraculously reappeared. 

We also hired someone to replace the sliding glass doors leading onto the deck when the sill beneath them rotted out and the door no longer slid in the track.  To close the door, you had to lift one end as you slid it back into place and then latch it while still supporting it in the air.  It was an awkward maneuver, and when closed, a gap was left at the bottom through which large, rather intimidating looking spiders and the occasional misguided cricket entered the living room at night.  The old, slightly fogged and poorly functioning doors were replaced with beautiful wooden French doors.  I was certainly too ignorant to hang the doors myself, but to save money, I agreed to stain and seal them.  In the end they made a beautiful addition to our home and perfectly framed our view of the backyard and park.  

In addition to learning the ins and outs of normal home upkeep, we unfortunately were educated in how to deal with unexpected emergencies.  One sultry evening a classic Midwestern thunderstorm moved into the area.  Interspersed with the heavy rain came small hail stones which quickly grew to the size of golf balls and increased in intensity.  The house literally roared as the hail beat on the roof and ricocheted off the decking.  Outside I watched the hail stones bury themselves into the soft, wet earth, strip leaves from the trees (killing a mother robin sitting on her nest and breaking the eggs beneath her,) shatter my birdbath and flatten my vegetable garden.  In the end, like every house in the town, we found we needed a new roof, and the fins covering the compressor on the air conditioning unit needed “combing” to re-open the smashed areas of metal.  I still recall the sound of hammers echoing throughout the neighborhood for weeks.  

On three separate occasions, we had to deal with fallen trees- the fast growing hybrid poplars that gave our yard a mature look and which cast so much shade proved to be very weak.  The first instance followed a long night of storms.  My wife had heard the wind and loud thunder and thought a tornado was approaching.  Rousing our son from bed, the two of them huddled in the bathroom (Darn the lack of a basement!) until all warnings had expired and the howling wind ceased.  We thought we had successfully weathered the storm, but the next morning as I opened the drapes in our bedroom, I saw only leaves and branches blocking the view.  The tree next to our bedroom had snapped in the storm and fallen onto the front corner of our house.   Thankfully, other than the loss of the tree, no property damage had been done.  The next occasion caught me totally by surprise.  It had been a sunny but breezy day of visiting with my parents on the eastside of Indy, but when I pulled into my drive back in Brownsburg, I found one of the trees in our backyard toppled over onto the neighbor’s property, lying across his pool shed and fence, but miraculously not damaging either structure.  His son worked for the parks department, and before the next day was done a crew had shown up and cleared all the debris.    And shortly after we accepted a bid from the person who would eventually buy our house, a storm brought half the remaining poplar down across our deck, shrubs and fencing.  In all three instances, other than some bent fencing, no property damage was incurred.  However, most of the tall trees that had always marked our yard were now gone.  The once cozy backyard seemed bare and bleak in the afternoon sun, and for the first time in 13 years I was looking forward to leaving it.

The poplar tree and yard before it snapped.

The aftermath of the storm.

We had purchased this house with plans of starting our family there, and it proved the perfect spot.  I can remember working to turn the one front bedroom into a nursery.  We painted the walls white then stenciled a Peter Rabbit design near the ceiling.  I had never done stenciling before, but I was quite pleased with the finished product.  Each night after work, Sara would sit on the floor and talk to me as I climbed the ladder and applied one of the four stencil colors.  During the daytime while I was away, she was sewing a quilt for the bed, and this too was stenciled.  We purchased a changing table and crib, as well as a bassinet, and the nursery was ready.  The room was directly across from the bathroom, and I can still see my toddler son hurrying across the hall each evening to grab a clean diaper and bring it back for his bath.  Occasionally, once his clothes were off and the cool air hit his exposed skin, he was invigorated and a giggling naked boy would take off running down the hall inviting a chase.  

My library furniture in their new home in the living room

My wife's piano along with hand-me-down furniture

A few years later, we were expecting our second child, meaning the third bedroom had to then be called into duty.  Up to that time it had functioned as my study and general storage area.  My desk and book shelves had to go.  So from the living room went my loveseat which had accompanied me through college, and into its place went the evicted bedroom furniture.  Actually, the desk and bookcases next to the fireplace made a cozy little scene.    We got our son an entire bedroom suite and papered the walls with a “Save the Rainforest” theme.  It was a warm and inviting little room for a young boy.  David had never slept in a regular bed before, and we were worried he might fall out.  To secure him in his bed, we pushed one side of it up against the wall and placed rails along the opposite side.  His desk sat near the head of the bed with a small eight inch gap between the two.  It was the only possible spot he could “fall” out of the bed, but that seemed like a ridiculous thought.  However, during the very first night in his new bed, I was awakened by a muffled cry of “Help! Help!”  I hopped up and hurried to my son’s room where I looked towards his bed to find it empty.  Scanning the room, I caught a glimpse of two little legs sticking straight up in the air between the bed and desk.  It was a pitiful sight, but I must admit I had to just stand there and laugh.  Twenty years later I still have not figured out how he managed to fall head first into such a little gap.  What I do know is that from that point on, the space was always filled with a pillow.  Our daughter took over the nursery until she too was ready for her “big girl” bed.  In this case, the bedroom suite was actually the one my wife had used as a little girl.  It was a rather delicate set of furniture consisting of a canopy bed, a desk and a dresser with an attached hutch, all done in glistening white.  Rebecca was so proud of her new room, and occasionally she would disappear only to be found sitting in a little rocking chair in her bedroom, rocking and reading a book.

Rebecca's "big girl" room

The home was everything we thought it would be with children.  Although not large, there was ample room for play in the house.  In the morning, Sara would push the youngest child in a stroller around the quiet neighborhood.  In the evenings, I would join her for those walks.  As each child grew they would walk with us, and David would sometimes ride his bike with us.  The backyard was large, but seemed so much bigger since it opened into the small neighborhood park.  In fact, David grew up thinking the playground equipment was his own, and I would sometimes catch him at the door yelling at kids in the park to, “Get off my swing.”  That swing set is where he and I would spend our evenings together.  As we swayed back and forth, I used the rhythm to teach him his numbers and ABC’s.  We identified cars and trucks and planes and called out their colors.  It was great bonding time, but also great learning time.  Although I used the same technique to teach my daughter, Rebecca preferred to sing to me as we swung.  Being small and timid, she enjoyed the swing, but for most of the years in which we lived there, she could never muster the courage to tackle the large slide and didn’t have the strength to climb the monkey bars.  But she could never get enough of the merry-go-round.  These were some of the happiest days of our life as a family.

Scott and David exploring the park

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and as our children grew and we accumulated more and more “stuff,” the house felt smaller and smaller.  We always knew this was our starter home and the day would come when we would seek out a larger house.  I had always wanted more land, so Sara and I started checking out any large tract that came on the market.  Brownsburg was pretty well developed and open acreage was rare.  What land there was was either labeled as commercial or was too expensive for us to buy.  We looked at some lots farther out in the county, but none of these appealed to us.  Either they were too far from my clinic or they lacked amenities such as gas and cable.  However, just as with our first home, Sara was the one who spotted the property that we would eventually buy.  And just like our first home, this sat practically in our back yard.  And that is where I will start in my next posting.