INTRODUCTION
WRITING DOWN THE BLOCKS
Bricks 101
One Viga
A Year Later
Decking the Roof
Floor Plans
WORKSHOPS
'Two-dollar pint night!' said the message. It was snowing. I didn't want to cook; I just wanted the food given to me, prepared and delicious, and for once in my life I didn't mind paying for it. In other words 'two-dollar pint' night sounded good to me.
You see, I'd been writing all afternoon, playing with ideas for this mystery novel. I'd just stopped and had started to play with the floor plan for the house I was building up north. Ever since Trenlin first offered me the building site, I have had one vision in my head as to how it should be inside. The floor plan.
She had offered me the building site at breakfast one Sunday morning. The next day I showed up with a design, a layout already written out on paper to show her. So clear I was that I even had a truckload of building materials! A year before Trenlin had had the site cut with a bulldozer; there was a semi circle dug out four feet deep into a hillside of clay. I could use this earth as the back wall, as solid as it was, for how long had that hill been there?
Hmm… where was I with describing the plan? That's right, I'd put the bathroom and a closet to the back of the house, the northwest, and the northeast was to be the kitchen. To the southeast would be the bedroom. To the southwest would be a little writing studio. The center of the home was to be the living room.
Over the last six months this basic lay out has stayed the same, although I did move a few interior walls ever so slightly… Anyway I had just stopped writing and begun to look at this floor plan once again. Finally I realized that I was stuck. I needed help. I needed to loosen up.
First I tried something Trenlin had shown me a while ago; I drew a basic out line of the house to scale. On a separate sheet of paper I drew my furniture, fixtures and appliances, also to scale. I ended up with little color cutouts of my bath, stove, fridge, sinks etc., you see what I mean? Then I put it all in an envelope and went to meet Mary and Stacy at the Blue Corn Café downtown. Time to get help! We ordered our beers our food. They smoked, and we caught up for a while, then I asked if they'd like a little project to do whilst we waited? They were curious but a little cautious. Last time I'd suggested something like this it was about quitting smoking. Another story, but to defend myself they had asked my advice as to how I'd quit those four years ago. The easiest explanation was in writing, I told them. I had written down why I smoked, why I wanted to quit. Then all I did was to look at the two lists each time I craved a smoke. With Mary and Stacy we tried the same process.
It worked for me. It didn't work for them…
However I hoped this project would be a little more inspiring…I emptied the envelope in front of them. I explained how I just wanted their opinions, how I'd like to see how they would use the space with all these fixtures. "What would you put where?"
Mary started to ask about what my plan had been. I began to tell her but then I realized I couldn't. I needed fresh input. So I shut up and watched her play, moving the little pieces around. It was interesting to listen to her thought process. She'd explain why the sofa would go here in line with the front door and not here to the side. I'd watch her realize how it would feel to walk inside and to stumble across the sofa within a few feet. Hmm… I wanted to butt in. Oh how I wanted to butt in! Her ideas were completely different to mine, apart from the kitchen. Like me she had put the kitchen in the northwest corner. The rest though was quite different; the bath was to switch with the bedroom, which moved to the back wall.
"You go there to sleep, so why put the bedroom with lots of windows if you don't have to? Think about taking a shower looking out onto the mountains!" she grinned. It made sense to me especially since the living space would still be in the middle of the house, very open and welcoming I think.
The food arrived and we focused elsewhere, at least Mary and I did. Stacy was drifting towards the plans. It didn't take long for her to push her food to the side and to grab the cutouts. I noticed she kept putting everything against the walls. I went to the bar and grabbed a few toothpicks; "you could use these as interior walls." I suggested. It seemed to help. To be honest though I can't remember her specific choices. It ended up being one large open space and I think the bedroom was where I'd originally put it in the southwest corner. She kept the bathroom where Mary thought to place it; the front southwest. Then she ate and chatted about her day at work, their plans for Christmas. "What about feng-shui?" chipped in Mary.
Hmm… that's another idea to play with. Could any of us remember anything about it? No, not really. The basic theory but not the actual placements. Only how the one corner in the back left corner is supposed to relate to your financial situation. Then we drew a blank. A cell phone. A quick call to a friend in Albuquerque…we had the answers now. I drew out the nine areas of feng-shui. We overlaid that division of space onto our finished design. It seemed to make sense in a weird kind of way. The career corner sat on top of where I wanted to put my writing studio. The kitchen was against the back wall to the northwest opening onto the living room in the middle of the house. According to feng-shui that was the best placement for health and family…I like having the bedroom to the back of the house too, I could see it would be cooler at night for me to sleep easily. Breathing warm air at night just makes my insomnia all the worse. Also, Feng-shui said this was the relationship corner. The bed and the relationship together? Sounds positive to me! The bathroom stayed where Mary had suggested, with the windows to the south facing the mountains at Ojo Caliente.
I liked it! The floor plan we came up with was different to my stagnant effort! I liked it a lot. It even made me excited to get back to working on the place!
First though it was time for another Pale Ale…