Our story so far: A rain delay gave Tyler the chance to test out the sound system inside the old Methodist church we had turned into our home.
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Tyler and his posse wrangled with passing showers over the course of the following days, but they made steady progress nailing plywood to the roof, then roof felt and ice-and-water barrier and finally black shingles to match those of the church.
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Tomorrow: The lean-to’s last act. Read about it here.
Our story so far: We moved into the old Methodist church we had renovated into our home, slowly unpacked our belongings, and Tyler was building an attached garage.
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The day after the garage trusses were set, it rained. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Rather than frustrating Tyler, it pleased him. For a change, he was happy to take a break from sawing wood. So he could saw some wood. On the sectional in front of his enormous TV. Zzzz. He also spent some of his time indoors setting up the great room sound system and threading speaker wires through the basement.
He tested out his sound system when a couple of his musically inclined friends from way back and their wives paid us a visit. While we were lingering around the dining room table (we might have been basking in the glow provided by some excellent tequila), Tyler turned up The Rolling Stones to top volume.
“If you start me up, I’ll never stop.”
The music sounded pretty impressive. This was a former church sanctuary, after all, designed for big sound.
“You make a grown man cry.”
Tyler laughed. Our friends laughed. I laughed, too. A get-together like this was exactly why we’d purchased the church.
“Kick on the starter, give it all you got.”
We couldn’t hear our laughter over the music. This was impressive inside. But I was curious about how it sounded outside. What would the neighbors think?
I left the table, making a path to the powder room. Only I ducked out the back door instead and walked around the church to the front to hear how the music sounded outside.
Sounded just fine. I could hear Mick Jagger. He could never stop by now. But even a passersby on the sidewalk wouldn’t be likely to complain. Unless they complained they weren’t invited.
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Tomorrow: A view of the big top. See it here.
Our story so far: During a visit to see the transformation, my father installed more than fifty knobs on various cabinets in the old Methodist church we had rehabbed into our home.
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Mom proved her prowess, too. She helped me unpack a dozen boxes of office supplies (yes, you might say we had an obsession with them), and she made an apple bundt cake for a pair of friends, one of whom spent her birthday paying a visit to see me and the church. I was grateful for the bundt pan I had unpacked, for my evenly heating gas stove and for the decorative cake plate on which to serve it—things I didn’t have in the camper for nearly two years.
My friends gave me a housewarming gift of a candle and a hand towel that said, “Meals & Memories are made here,” an appropriate sentiment for my new kitchen.
The evening before they returned home, Mom and Dad helped us remove the super sticky plastic wrap from our balcony carpeting. Removal was as farcical as the application, but we persevered. Mom helped me assemble the legs for the balcony chairs, which I had gallantly retrieved from the store weeks before but hadn’t had a chance to put together. The engineering student working part-time at the furniture store put his know-how to use to get both balcony chairs and six dining room chairs (all in boxes) into the back of my pickup so I had to make only one trip.
Mom and I recovered our breath while trying out the new chairs and taking in the balcony view.
“Now I have to find a lamp for up here,” I said.
“Where are you going to plug it in?” Mom asked.
“We have an outlet in the floor,” I said, looking down to locate it. “At least, I think we do.”
We looked between the chairs. We looked under the chairs. No outlet.
“Oh my goodness, they carpeted over it,” I said, feeling the floor to see if I could locate the outlet through the carpeting.
We couldn’t find it that way either.
I mentioned the omission to Tyler later. “Oh, the electrician forgot that outlet,” he said. “The carpeting installers wouldn’t have known to leave a hole for it. We’ll have to do it later.”
Ah, later. Another “later” project.
First, Tyler was determined to finish his garage. But Mother Nature had other plans.
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Tomorrow: Rain provides a musical break. Read about it here.
Our story so far: Shortly after we moved into the church we turned into our home, my parents paid us visit.
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A more enduring gift than the abundant harvest was my dad’s expertise with a cabinet hardware jig, a device that makes it easier to install cabinet knobs. He spent his “free” time during my parents’ visit installing more than fifty cabinet knobs throughout the church. When we moved into the church and I asked Tyler about when he would put on all our knobs, he said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Rome wasn’t finished when Dad left, but at least I could open all my cabinets properly.
When I pulled bags of knobs out of the bathroom cabinets for Dad to install, I ran across a couple of boxes of tip-out sink-front trays that turn false drawer fronts into usable storage.
“Oh, maybe you can install these while you’re at it,” I said off-handedly, not fully grasping the enormity of the task I was asking Dad to perform.
In his typical fashion, he did not complain (much). He figured out how to remove the false drawer fronts and install the trays (and the knobs!). Two cautionary tips: Dad told Tyler it would have been much easier to do before the quartz counter top had been glued on (impossible in our situation since we couldn’t find them then, but a useful note for you future DIYers). And, if you have a Dad as clever as mine who installs such handy drawers, you better put them to use. Because he will check when he visits at a later date and grouse about it to your sister when he discovers he put in all that effort and they’re not even used. I filled mine immediately with tooth floss and lip gloss.
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Tomorrow: The balcony, unveiled. Check it out here.
Our story so far: While my husband was working on the big and noisy work of constructing an adjoining garage on the church we converted into a home, I was working on smaller and quieter projects.
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I also unpacked box after box of cookware and serving ware. Cast iron, stainless steel, non-stick, porcelain. Crystal, ceramic, glass, bamboo. Oval, round, rectangular, decorative. All the large, fancy and heavy pieces we didn’t bring with us in the RV but couldn’t bear to part with were now unpacked and homes found. When we entertained, I pulled out a butter knife with quiet satisfaction. Such an inconsequential but lovely flourish I could offer guests once again. For the butter. Which was served in a ceramic butter dish instead of a Tupperware one. This small thing made me happy.
And glass wine glasses! Oh, the simple joy of a real wine glass. For many months while we had traveled in the RV, I drank wine from plastic glasses unless I dined out (and, believe me, I appreciated using glass when I had the opportunity). Glass glasses were so much more civilized, sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing than plasticware. I unpacked all but one of our glass wine glasses intact and stowed them in the cabinets of our new beverage bar. A few days into the garage construction project, my parents paid us a visit, and my clever father installed a plethora of cabinet organizers, including the stemware holding rack that turned my wine glasses from functional pieces into art.
I was still surrounded by boxes when Mom and Dad arrived, but with their help over the course of seventy-two hours, we made much progress. They arrived bearing news: “When we drove by Home Depot,” Dad said, “they had a sign that said, ‘Tyler and Monica, We Miss You!’”
Oh, ha, ha. Yes, our visits to the store had reduced in frequency but had in no way come to an end (shortly after Mom and Dad left, I ended up making two trips to Home Depot in a single morning).
When I offered Mom a drink and recited the options, she said, “Oh, your aunt will be pleased. She thought your beverage bar only offered coffee, beer and wine, and she doesn’t drink any of those, but I didn’t know you had water, too.” Indeed, the DrinkPod had been installed and dispensed filtered water in three temperatures: cold, room temperature and hot. Mother learned its ease of operation and helped fulfill drink requests for the remainder of her visit.
My parents also came bearing delicious gifts of harvest: Fresh buttercup squash from their Minnesota garden, two kinds of apples from Dad’s orchard, honey from their property they rented out on the plains of North Dakota, jars of homemade applesauce, homemade chokecherry jelly, and real maple syrup collected and cooked by the pastor who had once confirmed me in church.
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Today’s headline is a quote from Galileo Galilei, the 17th century Italian scientist who discovered Jupiter had moons revolving around it, among many other physical and astronomic observations. He was twice accused of heresy by the church. And apparently he was a fan of wine, which he, alas, most likely drank out of a vessel made of something other than glass.
Tomorrow: Dad does a jig. Read about it here.
Our story so far: We moved into the mostly finished converted church, and Tyler worked on adding a garage.
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While Tyler and his crew worked on a big and noisy project, I worked on projects small and quiet.
Switch plates and outlet covers, for example. Rather than paying the electrician to install dozens of switch plates, which required no particular talent, Tyler put me on the job. On the main floor, we chose a sleek metal-look alternative to standard white. I spent ninety minutes screwing on plates before I ran out of the right shapes and energy. I was half done.
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Tomorrow: The simple joy of a real wine glass. Read about it here.
Our story so far: The foundation was poured and walls were built for the garage addition to the old Methodist church we had turned into a home.
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During the course of a week, the skeleton walls were built just in time for the delivery of the roof trusses. These, too, had plans of a sort. Tyler specified the size, and the factory constructed the triangle-shaped roof supports in an engineeringly correct manner (“engineeringly” is not a word, but you get the point—they wouldn’t fall to fiddlesticks). Because the garage was not small, these trusses were not small either. They were forty-four feet long, and when they were delivered, the pile filled nearly the entire driveway. The weatherman also delivered: The day dawned sunny and clear, if a little more breezy than one might like.
The morning we set the trusses, Tyler—who had dreamed of this huge garage for the better part of a lifetime and after months of renovating the church was getting sick and tired of constructing anything and wanted to see progress—said, “If we get through today without anyone getting hurt, I’ll be happy.”
I knew then this work was tricky, trickier than most of what we had performed in our little, some might say big, project. If Tyler was measuring success by lack of injury rather than by dumpsters filled or two-by-fours used or square footage sanded, then this must be serious business indeed.
The enormity of the roof trusses required the use of a crane to lift them from the ground, one by one, and set them on the walls. A full crew of men—five plus Tyler and the crane operator—had been summoned. You-Can-Call-Me-Al and Reroofer straddled ladders and makeshift footings to help place them and then secure them, while the other men dashed around on the ground. Because cranes and skilled crane operators are, shall we say, not inexpensive to rent, everyone was moving fast and efficiently so as not waste time, which was money.
For the most part, I couldn’t watch. I sat at my computer in my upstairs office, one wall of which bordered the garage. I heard the regular sounds of engines and hammering and men yelling, praying I wouldn’t hear anything more urgent or worrisome than that.
I didn’t. The crane left to do crane-type work elsewhere in less than four hours. No one was injured. The trusses were properly in place.
Tyler was happy.
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Today’s headline is the first line from a joke. Answer: Because he had a bad case of shingles.
Tomorrow: In the meantime… Read about what kept me busy here.
Our story so far: We’d moved into the old Methodist church we’d turned into a home, and now my husband turned his attention to the garage.
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Naturally, this was no basic two-car garage. Fiddlesticks! What would my go-big-or-go-home husband do with such a tiny structure? He couldn’t even contain all his screwdrivers to a single drawer in his tool chest! He certainly couldn’t contain all his man-cave dreams—and tools for a lifetime—to a standard garage.
To be fair, Tyler created plans for the footprint of the extra-deep four-car garage in order to acquire a building permit. This allowed us to pour the cement foundation in the spring, and it had the opportunity to cure all summer. As we enjoyed happy hour drinks around a picnic table on the what became our temporary summer patio, we marveled at how well the water drained off the driveway. So we knew we had a good foundation.
While Reroofer worked on the roof of the belfry, You-Can-Call-Me-Al and Tyler began constructing ten-foot-tall garage walls out of two-by-sixes. In what I imagined an old-fashioned barn raising to be like, the two men would fold in helpers when necessary to set up a wall. One morning Tyler roped in a couple of railing fabricators who stopped by to measure for an interior railing, and often Reroofer, You-Can-Call-Me-Al’s son and St. Johnny would lend a hand.
Here’s a slide show of the transformation of the back yard from cement pouring in the spring to wall construction in the fall:
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Tomorrow: A crane and a roof. Check it out here.
Our story so far: We worked ten months to make the old Methodist church habitable, and now Tyler turned his attention to the garage in order to get it done before winter.
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Chapter 42
How to build a garage in ten easy steps:
If it were as easy to do as it was to write about it, everyone would build their own garage. Not everyone does. But Tyler was not everyone.
As he prepared to turn his attention to his garage, Tyler discussed the project with You-Can-Call-Me-Al, the man whose experience and execution skills had turned him into Tyler’s right-hand man. You-Can-Call-Me-Al, who had been willing through months of construction to work without written plans, was nonetheless more comfortable using them.
“Don’t you have blueprints for the garage?” You-Can-Call-Me-Al asked.
“No,” Tyler said. “I’ve never had plans for any other garage I’ve built.”
Tyler and I joked later than I should draw his ideas on a piece of notebook paper with blue ink, hand them to You-Can-Call-Me-Al and say, “Here’s our blue prints.”
Thus, Tyler and crew embarked on forming a garage from the ether of ideas.
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Tomorrow: Garage raising. Read about it here.
Our story so far: We reinforced the pilings on the belfry of the old Methodist church we’d turned into a residence so that we could safely ring the church bell. Which we did, much to our delight.
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We had a lot of leftover rope, which I asked Tyler about. I wondered if this was his typical “go big or go home” approach to buying in abundance or something else. He said he was pondering threading the rope through the closet to the main level.
At some point, he intended to attach to the end of the rope an ornate bell pull he’d found on Ebay. The designer, a sailor with a knack for knots, lived in the United Kingdom and had fashioned a crown at the top of the elaborate bell pull. “This particular crown most resembles the King George crown having six legs and an ermine fur cuff,” he wrote in his description. All of it was made of nylon rope, some of it painted. It would be a dignified ornament for our bell rope.
Outside on the belfry, we had determined that we would reroof the tip-top of the structure, replace the second-story window and install siding either later in the season (if Mother Nature cooperated) or, more likely, in the spring.
For now, Tyler wanted to concentrate on a different project: The garage.
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Tomorrow: Chapter 42 opens, and it all about the garage. Read about it here.
Church Sweet Home 