Projects

I have three brothers, every one of them a computer geek. For the past few weekends they have been branching out, doing a remodeling project at The Parents’ house. To be perfectly fair, “the boys” [who range in age from 30 to 42] all have some experience with this kind of project-when we were kids my father used to move a certain wall back and forth in our house at intervals, and we all got to be included in this edifying experience. And more recently, each of them owns and lives in an older house, and fun projects like this are a fairly regular experience.
Now they are passing the torch to the next generation. My sons, 16 and 19, my two oldest nieces, who are 12, my only nephew who recently turned 9, my niece who will soon be 8, and the baby, my 3 year old niece, have all gotten their time in on this project. Of course, the best part was when they got to completely destroy a wall in Grandma’s house. We sat on the floor and picked up nails and staples for quite some time after that stage, and the 3 year old ran the vacuum for about an hour.
Last Sunday, my boys carried subfloor from the garage to the protected deck. That was fun to watch-especially when they decided that it was quicker to just load a sheet on each of their backs, then they could carry a sheet apiece of the heavy 3/4 inch plywood. My youngest had just come back from a Boy Scout camp-out and was a little punchy, he was staggering a bit just walking around- suddenly he hurtled past the living room window, looking like a large out of control wooden shelled turtle. Well, all the subflooring was moved, with no damage to property or human. But it was sort of like watching my brother lawn surf on the tractor/mower--scary stuff.