House Lessons

by Erica Bauermeister

  When the experts tell you how to select a general contractor, they usually focus on issues like estimates, experience, licensing and bonding, and references. But as a married woman, I’ve got a few other criteria that are rarely mentioned. The first is: never be attracted to your builder. In my list of cardinal rules, it’s right at the top, because while affairs between an architect and a client have been known to happen, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that says it’s far more likely to occur with a builder. Think about it—a builder is almost always a strong and capable man, working inside your house day after day. He does whatever you ask. He cleans up when he’s done. He sees you in the morning in your bathrobe, hears you yell at your kids, and he still comes back the next day. It can be like catnip for women. So I make sure that’s a nonstarter, right from the beginning.

  The other thing I watch out for is that fourth R: respect. Will this man listen to me? Or will he constantly be looking past my shoulder for the man of the house? In my experience, although women are far more likely to be the contact person on a project, it can be hard for them to get complete respect on a job site.

  I put out my hand, and George shook it with a grip that was firm and friendly and decidedly platonic. I breathed a sigh of relief and got ready for the next stage.

  * * *

  —

  IF INSPECTORS ARE THE bearers of bad news and architects are the creators of dreams, builders are the caretakers of reality. It is their job to fix what is broken and build what is imagined. Most importantly, however, they deal with how much it is all going to cost.

  George and I now took a different kind of tour through the house, a quick fall to earth after scaling the lofty visions Roman had lit up in my mind. But I like the ground, too; at least there, you know where you stand.

  “Okay,” George said, as we returned to the living room. “Let’s talk priorities.” From the inspection report, we already knew that the electrical, plumbing, and heating systems were all shot. So were the foundation, the windows, the roof. In fact, it was hard to find something that didn’t need to be fixed.

  When it comes to home renovation, most experts will advise you to put your money into infrastructure and save the fun things like fancy appliances for later, when you can afford it. But infrastructure is even less exciting than maintenance, and it’s tempting to put it off. I’ve seen homeowners do major remodels while ignoring the need for a new foundation—only to watch the house simply collapse from a lack of attention. Cosmetic work may look good, but if your structure is rotten, it’s just not smart.

  I had a pretty good idea that doing the smart thing here meant there would be no money for a kitchen addition.

  “We’ll go from the ground up,” I said to George, swallowing hard. He nodded, pleased.

  “So,” he said, gesturing toward the fireplace. “What about the chimney?”

  Our chimney. You could see it from blocks away, a thirty-foot-tall tower of smooth, round stones, visually pulling you up the hill. The closer you got, the more fanciful the design appeared: lighter and darker stones arranged in triangles and circles and stars. Local beach rock made into art. You don’t see that kind of thing very much anymore; only the very rich, or the most devoted do-it-yourselfers spend that kind of money or time.

  The chimney had been one of the things that first attracted me to the house. I loved the whimsicality of it, and I am a sucker for beach rocks. I’d spent my earliest summers in Southern California, amidst the sand and rolling waves. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s a little different. In the bays of Puget Sound, the water is quieter, the shore often made of rounded stones. The best Mother’s Day of my life was spent hunting for beach rocks with my children and Ben. The ones that contain a ring of white are called wishing rocks, and we collected them, hope made solid.

  But I am a person who sees reality as much as hope, sometimes more so. As we had rooted about under the porch during the inspection, it had become increasingly obvious that the chimney was coming apart, due to its location next to the missing downspout. For far too many years, water had been flowing by the chimney and infiltrating the soil underneath—fill dirt, as it turned out, nothing particularly stable. Certainly nothing that should be holding up a thirty-five-thousand-pound chimney. As the ground sank, so, too, did the house, the chimney leading the way like a horse straining against its bit. We were lucky the whole thing hadn’t fallen into our downhill neighbor’s yard.

  “I’d hate to lose it,” George said. “It’s an important part of the house.”

  I nodded.

  “You can lift a chimney up along with a house.” He paused. “But that’s when the chimney is in good shape.”

  As we talked, it became clear that the best bet to save our chimney would be to dismantle and re-create it. Take a picture, tear it down, save the stones, and start over.

  “How much would that cost?”

  “I’d say you’re talking in the tens of thousands.”

  I knew what George would do; I could see it on his face.

  But we didn’t have that kind of money—and there was something else to consider. The exterior of the chimney was a wonder, but the interior was decidedly ordinary, with a matte-black painted brick fireplace that commandeered the living room. It looked like our own door to hell, complete with a grimy woodstove crouching in front of it like Cerberus guarding the gates. We could repaint the brick, give the fireplace a new mantel, but it would still always block the light and that hundred-mile view.

  “It’s your choice,” George said.

  Restoration. Renovation. Remodeling. Respect.

  “What about the plaster?” George asked, tabling the chimney issue for the time being.

  I love plaster, too—its texture gives depth to paint and a softened character to walls. But here again, ours was ugly stuff; in the bedrooms upstairs, where the rain had snuck in through leaks in the roof, the ceilings hung down like Miss Havisham’s wedding veil, dirty and desperately sad.

  “Usually, I’d say keep it,” George said, leaning in to examine it more closely. I saw his nose wrinkle involuntarily as he inhaled. “Might make sense to take it down, though. It would make it easier to get to those plumbing and electrical systems.”

  New plaster and lath would cost a lot of money.

  “You can use drywall,” George said, sounding a little regretful. “It’s still expensive when you’re talking about a whole house, but we can make sure you get a smooth surface. It can look nice…”

  I could almost see him mentally tallying costs in his head. Then he cast his assessing eye on me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Well, we’re talking about a lot of demolition if all that plaster comes down. You could save money if you did it yourselves.”

  I couldn’t tell if this was a test, a dare, or a reasonable suggestion. In any case, he was right. We hadn’t even started, and the costs were already spiraling out of control. We had to cut them wherever we could. I nodded yes.

  “Great,” George said. “And it would be better if it happened before we lift the house.”

  Now, I was the one doing the mental tally, counting up rooms, walls, ceilings.

  “The lighter it is, the cheaper it is to raise,” he explained. “Plaster and lath weigh a lot.”

  “How much time would we have?” I asked.

  “I talked with the house mover. He’s got an opening in six weeks.”

  He must have seen the flash of panic cross my face.

  “You could use my truck for hauling,” he added helpfully.

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  He turned to leave. “Oh,” he said as he reached the door. “While you’re at it, you could just get rid of that old kitchen. And it would really help when we do the new foundation if the bottom six feet of asbestos shingles were removed. That will save you a lot.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The door closed behind him, and I sat down, hard, on the floor, feeling it give just
slightly beneath me.

  PLASTER AND LATH

  “Do you see, Pooh? Do you see, Piglet? Brains first and then Hard Work. Look at it! That’s the way to build a house.”

  —A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

  PLASTER IS AN EXTRAORDINARY substance. A mixture of lime, water, and sand or cement, it resists fire, muffles sound, deters termites and rats, and can help control disease. It can be curved and molded, carved into spirals, or laid smooth across a wall. In early America, plaster walls were a sign of social status—in fact, the wooden wainscoting upon which we place such a high premium today was often installed less as decoration than as a way to protect the precious plaster from the rough edges of daily life.

  Probably the most extraordinary use of plaster is the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo spent four years on scaffolding fifty feet above the floor, paintbrush in hand, face bent upward, inches below the still-damp plaster—his skin soaking up the smell of water and crushed rock as his paint mingled into its damp surface and became color and pattern. It had to be damp, as a fresco can be painted only in fresh plaster, from which it derives its name. But as the surface dries, the paint becomes one with the plaster, making it a remarkably durable medium. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was finished in 1512, and it wasn’t until the 1980s that a restoration project was undertaken to remove the centuries of grime and candle smoke that had accumulated. The frescoes beneath were still stunning, brilliant in their colors.

  * * *

  —

  ALMOST ALL NEW HOMES in the United States are built using drywall, or Sheetrock—giant pieces of prefabricated material that are screwed into the studs by workers who move at lightning speed and always seem to smoke cigarettes. Plaster walls, in contrast, are expensive and time-consuming, created from a tricky combination of plaster and what is called lath—thin strips of wood nailed across the wooden studs of a building, leaving quarter-inch spaces between them. The plaster is then spread across the lath, oozing through the gaps, which helps adhere it in place.

  After several coats of increasingly fine plaster, the wall is smooth—not quite as smooth and consistent as drywall, but that is exactly the point. There is a living feeling to plaster. It accepts paint into itself in a way that drywall never will. It’s why our attempts to re-create the elegant, faded appearance of an Italian villa in a modern American home will only ever look like a fake movie set. Not just because that villa is likely centuries old, but because drywall lacks the give-and-take, the generous acquiescence that begins the moment paint is applied to plaster. Plaster walls allow for what the Japanese call wabi-sabi—the beauty in transience, the recognition of the aging process that is always present within life. They are a lesson in humility and grace.

  Unfortunately, our walls had left wabi-sabi behind long before and descended into true decomposition. Water stains spread in alluvial plains from leaking window ledges above; ragged cracks chased each other from corner to corner. From what we had seen, the plaster wasn’t doing a thing to deter rats, either. And then, of course, there was the smell—an olfactory distillation of everything we had found as we cleaned out the house.

  So, yes, the plaster had to go. But taking down all the plaster and lath in a 2,200-square-foot house in less than six weeks is a sizeable commitment. Luckily for us, we had help.

  “The whole house?” the kids asked in astonishment. “What are you going to pay us?”

  I was noticing a certain theme to our conversations.

  But this job, Ben and I rationalized, was a chance for real family bonding, without the unsettling trash. This would be pure hard work, the kind that builds muscles and character—and on that weekend we would be expanding our family to include Kate’s friend Rebecca, a teenager of diminutive size but plenty of energy.

  * * *

  —

  AS WE DROVE UP the hill toward the house, I saw that George’s crew had constructed a chute, running from a second-floor window down the outside to where Marge, the company dump truck, was parked. I breathed in a lungful of gratitude. That simple chute would save us hours, if not days, of time, allowing us to empty our second-floor loads in one exhilarating tip-and-spill rather than trudging downstairs over and over with loaded buckets.

  We parked, and all of us bailed from the car, glad to stretch our legs after the two-hour drive. As the kids stood around, trying to remember which end of a dust mask was up, George arrived in his pickup truck. He cast his eye over our crew with a bemused expression, but, always supportive, he simply unloaded a collection of tools we were going to borrow in addition to the big dump truck.

  “I want this one!” Ry declared, picking up a sledgehammer almost as tall as he was.

  “So,” George said, drawing our attention, “there are two ways to do this. You can knock down the plaster first and then rip out the lath with a crowbar. That’s neater and makes for an easier cleanup. You just scoop up the lath, and then shovel out the plaster.”

  The kids listened intently. There was more coming; they could tell.

  “Or,” George continued, “you can just take a sledgehammer and go for it. It makes a mess, but it’s a lot quicker.”

  Kate and Rebecca grinned at each another.

  “You might want to start with something a little smaller,” George said to Ry, nodding at the sledgehammer; then he hopped in his pickup. “Good luck!” he said. “Call me when you need the truck taken to the dump.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT it, we all fall into categories. When it comes to plaster, there are separators and there are smashers, much as in cooking there are those who clean up as they go and others who leave towers of used pots and pans and trails of carrot peelings in their wake. Separating, which requires much less upper-body strength, seemed an appropriate choice for most of our crew, myself included. But as I was listening to George, I’d found myself yearning to be a smasher, no matter how out of character that would be for me.

  I was born the youngest of four daughters, who arrived in rapid succession, with a brother eight years later. The ocean of our family was full enough; as a child, it was my job not to cause waves. Every year, when my mother gave each of us a new Christmas tree ornament, mine was almost always an angel—reading, cooking, or simply gazing out with sweet, untroubled eyes. Over time, they populated the tree, a phalanx of halos and wings that stayed sedately closed. When I was young, my mother told me a story about when she was twelve, approaching adolescence. Her mother had said with a wry smile, “I think we’ll just skip that part.” The expectation, passed down through the generations, was clear to me. So I don’t yell. I don’t hit things. And I have always been someone who cleans up as she cooks.

  My daughter, on the other hand, came out of the womb ready to run a small country. She was forthright and headstrong in her emotions in a way I could only dream of being. I refused to constrain her the way I had been, and yet I also felt I had to be an adult and keep her within reasonable boundaries. It was a tricky place to live as a parent, stuck between responsibility and envy, and neither Kate nor I thrived there.

  A couple days earlier, I had called my mother and told her about our plans.

  “You’re going to do what?” she said. “But you’re the one who likes things clean and neat.”

  I was forty-two years old and more than ready to demolish a few expectations. Perhaps, I thought as I considered the tools in front of me, if I could wield a sledgehammer I could become one of those people who rips the wrapping paper off presents guilt-free, or indulges in loud and quickly forgotten arguments—or who maybe, just occasionally, says what she wants. I would take that.

  * * *

  —

  BEN AND THE KIDS and I were arranged around the upper landing, each facing a different wall. Music from an old rock station blared out of our decrepit boom box, with a loud, strong bass beat that demanded destruction.

  “Ready?” the kids yelled, hammers and crowbar
s raised, like cavalrymen preparing for the charge.

  They were itching for demolition. I thought of how many times I had reminded my children to be gentle and kind, explained that human beings were meant to create, not destroy. How often had I admonished them as toddlers for knocking down a friend’s block tower or obliterating their own Play-Doh creations? It seemed odd now to be handing them wrecking tools.

  And yet, I liked the feel of the sledgehammer in my hand.

  “Go!” Ben and I shouted.

  The kids aimed at their walls and let their implements of destruction fall.

  “Yay!” they cried out.

  Under the force of their blows, threadlike cracks skittered across the surface of the walls; particles the size of pennies fluttered to the floor. A bit of lath, shy and embarrassed, peeked out. This continued for twenty minutes or so.

  Our intentions were good, and Ben, who had done demolition before, obviously knew what he was doing, but at the rate the kids and I were going, we would be hanging our Christmas stockings on lath nails. We needed new motivation, something to put some force behind our tools. I turned to Kate and Rebecca, whose adolescent emotions had begun rocketing about our house like heat-seeking missiles gone astray. It was time to harness some of that power.

  “Okay,” I said. “What makes you angry?”

  My daughter looked at me, considering. Rebecca smiled.

  “Really?” Kate said.

  I took a deep breath. “Sure—pick a good one, and go for it.”

  Kate’s eyes brightened at the possibility. There was a pause while we all thought, searching for the right choice in our databases of resentments and frustrations. Even with only a few minutes of experience in demolition, I could tell that the energy stored in petty annoyances—the missed green lights and the muddy dog tracks across the living room rugs of our lives—would provide at best a half hour of fairly unproductive work. If you wanted the kind of power that would take down a wall, you had to dig down into areas made murky with willful repression. You had to use anger, rage even, the kind that takes up lodging in your muscles, twisting its way into the fabric of your life.