remedial retrospective
I made a comment in Champ's blog about having done contractor work at one point in my life. He commented that it surprised him. I' m not sure why but I'm guessing it is because he knows I'm a scientist and probably thinks I'm unable to do anything practical. To me, almost all of living is about solving problems, inventing, creating solutions to real life events. Sometimes those real life events aren't obvious to one unless one has been shown enough of the back alleyways to see the underpinnings of life problems. Carpentry, at least the way I did it, had much in common with science. How do things fit together? What is the interface of all the pieces? How do the parts move and work with one another? You ask those question (or at least I do) about everything that happens around you.
Anyway, here's what I posted to Champ.
It was back in Oregon. I learned carpentry skills in high school while designing and constructing sets for the school plays.
I worked construction for awhile in the summers during college, mostly doing renovations on a huge warehouse that was turned into a crafts market. Then a bf and I formed a company and did a lot of one offs additions and renovations with me doing alot of the design work (sans architect).
Our most lucrative gig was one summer we did dry rot repair. In the post ww2 era new house construction there didn't use insulation so all of those houses ended up with condensation problems and water dripping on the rim joists. This caused rot and invasion by carpenter ants and also rotted out lots of the joist ends. So the fix was to go all around the foundation jacking up two joists at a time, cutting out the rot and scabbing in a new joist end and putting it up on a post and cement pad.
The good parts of the job was the underside of the house was cool in the summer heat and I spent a lot of time laying on my back (I was the one laying on my back under the house). The bad parts of the job were all the spiders I had to evict on the first day under and the occasional cat that had decided that under the house was the place to go to die.
Oh and I also built my own house during this time. Sold it just before moving to VA to finish grad school when my lab moved.
Anyway, here's what I posted to Champ.
It was back in Oregon. I learned carpentry skills in high school while designing and constructing sets for the school plays.
I worked construction for awhile in the summers during college, mostly doing renovations on a huge warehouse that was turned into a crafts market. Then a bf and I formed a company and did a lot of one offs additions and renovations with me doing alot of the design work (sans architect).
Our most lucrative gig was one summer we did dry rot repair. In the post ww2 era new house construction there didn't use insulation so all of those houses ended up with condensation problems and water dripping on the rim joists. This caused rot and invasion by carpenter ants and also rotted out lots of the joist ends. So the fix was to go all around the foundation jacking up two joists at a time, cutting out the rot and scabbing in a new joist end and putting it up on a post and cement pad.
The good parts of the job was the underside of the house was cool in the summer heat and I spent a lot of time laying on my back (I was the one laying on my back under the house). The bad parts of the job were all the spiders I had to evict on the first day under and the occasional cat that had decided that under the house was the place to go to die.
Oh and I also built my own house during this time. Sold it just before moving to VA to finish grad school when my lab moved.
8 Comments:
Prom:
A pleasant surprise; not, hey, you're a girl, how could you have been a renovator. Actually, the woman who disassembled and then reassembled my parlor staircase was the one craftsman I hope to emulate someday.
Aside from the perceived traditional sexual orientation of contractors discussion, I'm happy to note someone else who approaches things like you do. My own theories wander off sometimes, I know. One favorite is that all material in the world has similarities to tamale masa.
If you can make tamales, you can mix drywall compound, grout, butter cream or Pharmaceuticals.
Thank about that for about a minute and you'll start doubting all sorts of things you think you believe.
It comes as no surprise that tamale masa mixing leads you right to dry wall compound and vice a versa. I feel the same way about recipes and experimental protocols. You have to understand the intent before you can mess with the proportions and timing.
Prom: You've been blogging more and I've missed some. I have to catch up. I like the contractor history and the 11th Hour donation. (Be a Mensch, Save a Mutt!) That's a birthday present.
I cook sloppily but well, and that's why knitting is my craft of choice. You can do it on the fly and change your mind as you go. Unlike construction or plumbing or bicycle repair. The very material you work with can change (it's underlying pattern, like an Aran sweater or a lace sampler) as can the structure. Many things I start are different when they are finished. And for different people than I had originally intended.
I'd love to be able to build, but I've never taken the time to learn the process (I can hang pictures, however, although not on Victorian era plaster).
I knitted a few things, one I still have, but I can't stand the feel of wool on me even when I think I really want to. Knitting with a finer cotton yarn takes so bloody long!
Let me look Foil but I think I have a bunch of maroon wool that you might be able to incorporate into something and I'll send it to you if 1) I find it, 2) you want it.
Oh, if you have wool, I'll take it. (I am absolutely shameless at this point, in case you haven't figured that out.) I find knitting so relaxing. Between that, blogging, and guitar playing, I've managed to stay close to sane these last six months.
exsjp?
send me your address at promenea@yahoo.com and I'll send it out to you.
Being from a family of carpetner's I should have the skills, but don't. I was a girl. Still am. STILL get to hold the nails and the hammer, not use them.
Interesting on your approach to things...so cut and dry. I have that somedays, but something always thwarts it and I can not be precise, so I now approach things with a "wing it" motto. Not that I want to wing it, that's the way it ends up.
Your birthday gift is awesome. Murray's friends are blessed.
I have no idea what any of this is about, but I'm glad to see you are writing again, and I will check out the earlier posts to catch up!
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