Getting a Raise
During my time at UNC, I spent one summer in Chapel Hill, living in a little house on Franklin Street and working construction on what would be the university’s new burn center. I had the usual jobs. Digging holes. Filling in holes. Pushing concrete around in a wheelbarrow. Out of this, a building somehow rises up.
My co-workers included Charlie, a short, stout lifer in the day laborer department, a fellow college kid whose name I can’t remember, and James. James was around six feet tall, and a year or two out of high school, with kick ass biceps and a bad attitude. Most of his morning was spent leaning on his shovel, hard hat cocked to one side (the “off” position). Then he’d break for lunch. He had been recently released from the state prison in Raleigh – convenience store, armed robbery. He was friendly enough to us, but he didn’t have much use for authority, you might say. No one seemed inclined to push him too hard.
One day the supervisor came over to us. “We gonna give you boys a raise,” he said, gesturing over to the forms framing the concrete and steel pillars that would support the next level of the center. “We moving y’all to the second floor.”
He seemed to think this was pretty funny.
Anyway, this week Rodney delivered the preliminary plans for the second floor of our house. It’s less dramatic than the first floor, more utilitarian. But his signature flow is there. Three bedrooms, two baths (one shared) for a total of just under 1,000 square feet for kids and friends when they visit. Doubling as an office in between times. Some storage areas, which we’ll need since there’s no basement.
Challenges remain. The floor plan is now almost the size of our current house, which is bigger than we need and more than we want to invest. A little trimming is in order. Details about the kitchen are still being hashed out – cabinets, ladders, bookcases, appliances. As Rodney says, these choices drive costs as much or more than the footprint of the house. So there are some tough decisions to be made here, too.
Next in line architecturally: elevations, when the house starts to look like a house, and the whole project takes another step away from pen and ink closer to two-by-fours and masonry. We’re excited. As they say in the construction business, things are looking up.
Photo: Climbing Cape Hatteras Lighthouse (2004).
500 miles 