Construction

The house I grew up in had a carport. Not unlike a garage, a carport is a sheltered place to house your car. Except it is not enclosed.

When I was eight years old, my sister Amber was born. There were now six kids and two parents living in a two bedroom house. The five of us older children were still in the second bedroom and my baby sister in my parents room. But my parents could see it was time to do something.

I remember my Dad breaking up the concrete in the carport. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was easier than just adding more around it, because the new addition he was building was definitely bigger than the carport was. I remember trying to skate around the concrete chunk. I loved skating. We had about twenty feet of sidewalk and I reveled in skating back and forth on it. The chunks of concrete just made it more interesting.

I remember one Saturday morning, Dad and about a dozen men from our Church, put up the frame of the new portion of our house. It reminded me of a barn raising. But it was so cool. And the smell of the fresh lumber was intoxicating. The new portion of the house was so huge! The original portion of the house was one level. The new section was two stories. There would be a two more bedrooms upstairs, along with a bedroom downstairs, a laundry room and a shower.

That summer was one big adventure, watching Dad work on the house, pounding nail after nail into the lumber. I loved going with Dad to Volco, a local store similar to Home Depot. They would load stacks of lumber into the back of the Chevy Truck, with the red flag attached, warning other drivers that we were hauling extra long cargo.