STORY
EIGHT
ADDITION TWO, THE SECOND VISIT, A HEW
HOME
OR,
SELF INFLICTED HEADACHES
Late summer 1991 my
spouse began to have unusual feelings. Two months later we knew why. She was
pregnant once again. I really do not know if she was sad or glad, or had mixed emotions
at any given time. Overall though, I think she was happy with the thought. She selected
the same obstetrician that we had used when our son was born and was scheduled for
regular check-up visits. Being of petite stature one could not readily tell
that she was carrying until some four months later. Her appetite was not
veracious and she held her weight gain to a minimum so much so that her doctor
advised her to eat more nourishing foods. By the time seven months had passed,
one could tell of her pregnancy just by looking at her. She had some maternity
clothes left from her first pregnancy, but we went shopping and stocked up her
wardrobe with appropriate additional garments. Meanwhile she took stock of what
we needed for the new arrival. We reckoned that our son would just about be four
years old when the new baby would be born. That meant that we could use a
number of items such as his crib, high-chair, baby toys, and other items that
he had outgrown. We also were registered for an updated course on baby
deliveries at the local hospital. The time went by quickly now and we were into
the ninth and final month of her pregnancy. By this time she was “big” and
somewhat uncomfortable. It was time to have the baby. We visited her doctor mid
April and he gave her one more ultrasonic check-up and thought the baby would
be due in a month. He should have known better from the first delivery, for our
son was born three weeks prior to his expectation. The same held true the
second time around. Late April she felt the time had come for her to go to the
hospital. I took her to the Maternity Ward where she had an exam by the staff.
They told her, just as in the First time around, that she was already in her
second stage of delivery and proceeded to admit her while notifying her
obstetrician.
By the time the doctor
arrived she was almost ready for delivery. He had but to wait less than two
hours before the process would begin. I was holding her hand and encouraging
her together with the nursing staff as the delivery procedure began in earnest.
All went well until it was time for the baby's shoulder and head to come out.
It took the doctor quite some time to work with the baby and pull her through
with Mom's help. When he finally succeeded the baby was all blue from the effort.
The staff was visibly concerned and the baby was immediately placed into the
intensive maternity care unit. We did not know the gender of the baby until it
was born. It was a girl. The difficulty in her final stages of birth it turned
out was due to a computer miscalculation. The baby's weight was thought to be
around 7.8 pounds, but as it turned out she weighed in at 9.1 pounds, quite a
big baby for a petite lady. The doctor later advised us that due to the strain
in having to pull so hard, the baby had indeed suffered some shoulder, arm and
hand nerve damage. It would be a long healing process and the full use of that
part of her body would never be quite at the one hundred percent level,
although it would eventually grow to be quite functional with the assistance of
special exercises and lots of therapy. Three days later we brought the baby
home. As a coincidence her birth was just three hours shy of that of our son's
or else they would have both been born on the same date, only four years apart.
When the wife's parents
received word of the new arrival in the family, they were very happy. They were
so pleased with the event that they made plans for a speedy return. Three weeks
later we met them at the local airport. This time the wife's younger sister
also came along. It was her first trip to the States. We arrived home and the
baby got an immediate dose of attention from her new aunt and grandparents. The
wife was pleased both with their attention as well as their help. Mom cooked up
a variety of mostly native ethnic soups which helped her daughter to recover
more speedily from having given birth. Dad was busy attending the rather large
yard by trimming bushes, digging around the roses and beautifying the
landscaping. Sister was very good to the baby, as were they all, and played
with her often. The visit had a positive effect on the wife and once again
rekindled that very close family loyalty that is so prevalent in long established
oriental families. The chatter and banter were all in Korean since the
visitor's English was quite limited; sometimes I felt as though I was a little
lost or wished that I had learned Korean so that I could participate more. Of
course if anything important came up my wife would tell me about it. We did
take time out to show the family a few places they had not seen before. These were
mostly in close-by
Our neighborhood was
changing. Developers were adding new sub-divisions all around us and the area
just mushroomed with new houses and people. It began to look more like a city rather
than a country environment. My honey started to feel hemmed in. We had looked around
the city and county for a possible replacement home two years ago, but could
not find anything that was well built and reasonably priced. There was a developing
subdivision further out in the county where all lots were two acres and all the
homes were custom built. An agent had just told us of a couple who had bought a
lot there and wanted to sell it because they lost their business. We talked
about it briefly and thought it might be a good idea, just in case we ever
decided to build our own home. Then, two years later we made that decision. My
primary interest was the excellent school system that went with the new area.
The wife thought it would be a good idea to have a master bedroom on the first
floor and the children's bedrooms on the second floor. Naturally, she too liked
the upscale neighborhood and spacious room between houses. She also admired the
individual architecture of some of the homes. Before we could get serious however,
we had to market the home we were in. We arranged for a realty company to sell
our house. The area had so many new homes to choose from, that it took more
than the average turn around time before we finally found a buyer who was happy
with the house. Actually we thought we had sold it once before, but the person
who wanted it had to cancel out when the job that was promised him in the area
did not materialize. The new buyer did not have that problem and so the sale
was completed in late summer of 1992.
The new owners were in a
hurry to move in. We packed over two hundred boxes, gave away half of a
truckload of older furniture and items no longer useful to us to the Salvation
Army, and prepared to vacate our now “sold” home. We had a problem in that we
first had to find a temporary rental home while arrangements were being made to
start building our new home. This was no mean feat. Rentals were scarce at the
time. We needed a larger rental home where we could store our boxes and
furniture and live there at the same time. The real estate agent that sold our
house phoned us within a week and said she had found a rental home close to our
old neighborhood. A couple from
The wife had been
thinking of houses for several years. She was always interested in architecture
and that coupled with her background and artistic talent provided her with some
strong views about the type, style, and overall appearance that she wanted in
her new home. She also had folders full of cut-outs from a variety of
Architectural and Building magazines which featured rooms or layouts of design
that met her standards. We even found the building plan of a house that she thought
she might like to follow. The plans, in blueprint detail, were available for
purchase and we arranged to buy them. There were many modifications that she
wanted to make before trying to find a builder. So we checked with a well-established
local architectural Firm and discussed our plans with the owner. He was very proud
of many fine buildings, both residential and commercial he had built over the
years in a number of
Meanwhile, we had been
looking around for a builder. An acquaintance suggested a builder he had known
in the area who had a good reputation. We visited with him and were impressed.
He heard of our experience with the architect and came up with an alternate
suggestion. It seems there was a young architect who just came into town and
was doing some occasional work for the builder. He gave us his name and we
contacted him. The architect, just becoming established, worked from his home.
He preferred coming to our rental home to discuss our architectural wants and
needs. We spent several hours explaining what it was we were basically looking
for in a house. Then the Mrs. showed him the clippings and photos of what
pleased her in particular. Two weeks later the young architect was back with
some early sketches of the kind of house he had in mind for us, keeping the
wife's wishes in mind. There was no doubt in our minds that he grasped what we
wanted and had the ability to execute the architectural requirements for it. We
agreed on a package fee for his services and he went to work on the plans for
our future home. The more he worked, the better we liked it. I believe the
architect was really getting enthusiastic with his work and perhaps was hoping
that when the house was finally built and completed, he could refer to it as a
specimen of his architectural achievement.
Now it was time for us
to really find a builder. The gentleman we had previously discussed our project
with was willing to do the job, but he advised us that he had just undertaken a
large development and that he personally would be too busy to watch the construction
progress on a daily basis; he said he had a foreman for that purpose. We
thought about this approach and decided “no,” that was not for us. We would
rather have a smaller builder who would be on site more frequently to oversee
any problems on the spot and correct them. The wife remembered a doctor's wife
who had her house remodeled by a local builder. Her friend raved about how
clever and inventive her builder was. We thought we would contact him the next
day. He came to visit us and we talked at some length about our plans. We also
showed him some of the more detailed sketches we had from the architect,
although the blueprints were first being drafted. The builder became very
interested and we drove out to the site that we had bought before to build our
house. It was a two acre lot and we could see the builder was mentally imagining
where to place the building and how it might appear completed in his mind. He
told us he would return with a builder's contract in a week. Meanwhile he suggested
we arrange for our financing to pay for the building.
We did just that. We got
a construction loan for the difference that we needed from our own funds that
was to be paid off in full after the building was approved for occupancy by the
local inspectors. We also had to obtain numerous permits for the septic tank,
water, and utility lines, and most important of all, for our building plans and
blueprints to be passed by the County building permit people so that the
builder could start to build. These things all fell into place and in October
1992 we broke ground to start. Luckily we had picked a great builder. From the
very start, practical changes had to be made in the architect's plan to allow
the builder to make “building sense” out of the plans. The builder was able to
use the blueprints and follow the basic design, but with many other modifications
that were necessary in order for him to proceed on a daily basis. We also were
way over budget. The builder had many suggestions about how we could still have
a nice home at a reduced cost. We agreed to do away with an expensive center
roofline, took out two large fireplaces that we did not plan to use, eliminated
a circular stair case that would have taken up extra space, standardized the
window package from custom to regular sizes which saved half of the price, nixed
many buffers on the exterior of the stucco house, and redesigned the upstairs
bedrooms to provide less hall-space and larger bedrooms.
On the other hand, we
made some improvements that were more expensive. The biggest was to change the
design from forced air heat and a swamp water cooling system, to hot water baseboard
heat and two air conditioning units, one for the first floor and the other for
the second floor. Another major change was to expand the metal roofing by
redesigning the upper roof and adding a quality metal roof over the downstairs
master bedroom. We watched the progress on almost a daily basis. It seemed to take
a long time to excavate the site where the house was to be located and then finally
to grade the ground and pour the steel reinforced foundations. It took even
longer to “frame” the house, even though the builder had his own experienced crew,
and the foreman was pretty knowledgeable and responsible. The plans called for
all indirect and recessed lighting which we followed. The electricians used reams
of wire and dozens of light fixtures and electric outlets. They also pre-wired
for inside phone lines, TV cables, and circulating fans, should we want to use
them. Different tasks required special wires to carry certain electric loads.
Air conditioner compressors, the washer and dryer outlet, the built-in oven and
top island kitchen range, and some other functions required much heavier lines
than the more routine light fixtures.
It was interesting and
fun to see all the plans coming slowly together after six months of building.
Eventually the windows were installed and that took time. There were some
larger commercial window sizes and others of different sizes, all in all nearly
forty windows. We wanted a very bright house, and the architect designed the
windows so that as the sun rose it would bathe the house from daybreak to dusk with
sunlight. The flooring, sheet-rock dry walling, and interior finishing took another
two months. Then it came to selecting the type and style of carpets, floor
tiles, wall tiles, and other interior décor, some of which like the toilets,
Jacuzzi, sinks and all fixtures were previously arranged for. A number of the toilets,
sinks, and the Jacuzzi were of black décor. The kitchen and appliances were all
white. The builder suggested an “Avonite” countertop
that looked and felt like marble, but was actually of a built-up plastic
composition. Another suggestion was to use “commercial grade” carpeting and
tile. The benefits to this were that it saved money, while at the same time it
is much longer lasting and more durable.
All the while the
builder used his creative skills to innovate special designs and other refined features
to make the house more artistic and unusual. For example, he knew of a local sculptor
and persuaded him to design the interior railings for our overhang, main
stairwell, and dining room-living room separation. The sculptor did a magnificent
job and the color pattern he selected for his tubular steel design is admired
by all. The architect's design of an eight foot tall and wide massive oak door
as the main entrance is also impressive. The builder was even able to accommodate
the wife and build a pantry next to the kitchen, and a coat closet in the
utility room that were not in the original plan. The builder also helped me in
the Library by building wall to wall shelves some of which were specially designed
cubicles to hold my music collection, as well as a built-in “L” shaped desk to
hold the computer. Suggestions by the builder in the paint décor and the stucco
color were appreciated by us as was the electrician's suggestion of a number of
track lights throughout the bedrooms. After the exterior concrete work was
accomplished, such as the patio, sidewalks, and a rear enclosure wall, we
decided to add a twenty foot flag pole that I had ordered from an East Coast
company.
Finally, eight months
after breaking ground, the building passed inspection and in May 1993 we took
possession of our new residence. There were still some loose ends to be
finished by various sub-contractors, but basically the house was ready for us.
We arranged for a contractor to do the landscaping, put in water lines,
railroad-tie type borders, a weed prevention tarp covered with gravel around
the house and a large climber and swing for the children. The following month
we had an “open house” for the neighbors. They had watched the building go up
but had not seen the finished product, since when all the doors were hung and
windows installed the building was locked after the workers left. Our neighbors
uniformly liked or loved the house. They were very complimentary. Since then we
have had many visitors and friends at the house, and we have yet to find one
who is not pleased or uncomplimentary about it. I guess all the effort,
frustrations, perseverance, and creativity were not expended in vain.
Dear
reader should you ever undertake a building effort, or for those of you whom have
already done so be assured that there are always many surprises in store. It is
to be hoped that this accounting stupefied you into a relaxed state, allowing
you to fall asleep long before finishing this informative (yawn) construction
STORY.
©
1990 Herbert Holzbauer
Published @, 1997 edition S.p.N.LAUB