In Oregon, building codes and land use plans are fairly new creations.  When my dad began building his house, there weren't too many restrictions about what could or could not be done, so it was pretty common for people to build their own buildings in their own way, unless, of course, they knew nothing about building or plumbing or electrical wiring.  My dad is from pioneer stock and describes himself as "a jack of all trades and master of none."  Such men fearlessly do what those with more skill or less skill would never attempt.  My dad would no sooner hire a professional to work on his own house than he would sprout wings to fly to the moon.

He also refused to borrow money, so he built the house in stages, little by little as he could afford to or when he happened upon a serendipitous find at the country auction or the county dump.  If you've ever witnessed a project being done in increments over a 50-year span of time, you can probably guess what happened.  People tend to change their minds when given enough time to do so.  Part of our front yard was encircled (ensquared?) by a concrete foundation for most of my childhood. My siblings and I used to walk on it like city kids walk on curbs.  One day, when I was old enough to notice that no one else had such a thing in their front yard, I asked my dad what it was for.  "Oh, that's where the rest of the house it going to be when I get it built."  He dug it up when I was in high school.

He had also dug a huge hole under the house for a basement at some point in time.  The proposed stairwell was behind the kitchen next to the livingroom.  As Dad kept adding rooms, the stairwell eventually became the center of the house, like a doughnut hole.  It was a little room with no roof, a plank floor with half-inch cracks between the planks, and a door across the hall from the bathroom.  We kids could quite literally run in circles inside the house without opening or shutting a single door.  Drove my mom nuts!  She'd sometimes threaten to put us out in the "doughnut hole" if we didn't behave ourselves.  My sisters and I once found a skeleton key and unlocked the door to that stairwell as we had plans of making a fort out of it.  When we discovered that the yellow-jackets and wasps had squatters' rights, we abandoned the idea post-haste.  

Eventually the doughnut hole and part of the hallway on one side of it was turned into a bedroom for my little brother.  I now have plans of turning little brother's bedroom that my mom turned into pack-rat paradise into a breakfast nook. It's a rather appropriate ending for a doughnut hole, don't you think?  Wish me luck!

Sandy, 6/27/04


It only takes a second to have your life turned upside-down.  A few days after we started our "remodeling" project, my mom had an appointment with a surgeon to once again try to get  knee replacements.  She's been trying for five years or more, but her obesity and diabetes made her a risky candidate for surgery.  Medication and a change in diet put her blood sugar levels back in the normal range a couple of years ago, so she's no longer diabetic.  This may have tipped things in her favor, because this surgeon said yes, he'd try knee replacement surgery on her worst knee!

Normally, it takes several months after the doctor's decision to operate to make it to the operating table.  But there was a cancellation and Mom is scheduled for surgery on July 26.  This gave us exactly 3 weeks to get the major part of our remodeling done!  Yikes!  We've been joking about doing an Extreme Makeover Home Edition without the TV show's crew or budget, but now that we have about the same time limit, it's no joking matter.  

So far, we've removed the kitchen clutter, the hall pantry, and most of the treasure trove in my brother's old bedroom.  We've found treasures like the cake topper from my parents' wedding cake, funny little things like a note from a nephew's teacher saying his homework was a few days overdue (he's now pushing 30 - wonder if he's turned in that homework yet?), things that make us wonder Why? (like several boxes full of empty cardboard boxes), and things we hold up and play the What is It? game from Ask This Old House (another TV show).

We have 10 days remaining to weed out the clutter in the livingroom and my parents' bedroom, move furniture around to make the house safe and navigatable, and get things organized to a basic degree.  If we count the days Mom is in the hospital, we have about four more days to work with.  This is a big difference from the 3-4 months we thought we had until rainy, cold weather would stop us.  In the long run, this surgery will, we hope, allow my mom to stay on her feet for several more years.  In the short run, well, it's got us running.

Sandy, 7/14/04

 

I can't believe that summer is over!  Where did it go?  And why did it leave so quickly?  We've accomplished a lot at my parents', but there's still so much to do.  The August rains came pretty much on schedule last week.  Although we still had stuff outside, everything was under some kind of cover - carport, greenhouse, tarps, raincoats - and the rain wasn't as bad as last summer, not even a flicker of lightning this year.

My mom is getting around slowly using a walker.  Her physical therapists say she's doing really well, and they always comment on her amazing tolerance for pain.  My mom says it's nothing compared to the pain she was in before the surgery.  Makes me cringe in pain just to think about it.

The kitchen is slowly coming into order.  It's brighter than it was, and a lot more spacious.  I, for one, really appreciate having a full 36 inches to walk through to get from kitchen to hallway, compared to 18 inches.  We had to remove a section of counter and upper and lower cabinets to do it, though, and now we have to figure out where in the world to put the things that were stored there.  We found an old wood cookstove outside that my sister and I thought would make a great buffet/counter/cabinet thingy, but my dad wants to hook it up to a stovepipe and burn the rust off first.  We know Dad pretty well by now and have started looking for other options.  'Tis a shame, though, as that cookstove would have looked really nice inside the house, instead of outside the house.  I'm just old enough to have fond memories of my grandmothers and great-aunts cooking on those old cookstoves, so I think they're really neat.  My mom was okay with the idea of using one as a piece of kitchen firniture, but she doesn't seem to have the same appreciation for them.  I'm guessing she spent her fair share of time actually having to cook on one, whereas I've only had a few opportunities to play at cooking on one.  Maybe some year my sister and I will succeed in getting that grand old relic back in the kitchen where it belongs, standing next to it's electric little sister.

Sandy, 8/31/04