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I tried to be a logger. Damned hard work
Aspired to be a big game hunter. Spoiled by early success.
Settled for fishing. Now I don't have time for it.
Jules Quaver for President 2004
My hat is off to you, I had to sneak the tools and materials, and you can be sure I wasn't caught on film.
Learned to pick locks to get into dad's tool shed. Nah, I don't have it bad...
My first tree fort (age 10) was built with stud walls and a concrete slab. I picked it up watching construction sites as my rural area was developed, and helping myself to mat'l from the people who were destroying my forest. I would teach my kid that's wrong, but I really didn't know better then.
The walls rotted out the first year because I concreted SPF into the ground. But it was a good attempt.
I love residential construction. Have since I was little making mud houses.
remodeler
remodeler, That sounds pretty ambitious for 10. Did you always get a big bang out of building things?
I have always loved residential construction. Don't care much for commercial. One thing thinking about back then was my dad had a few tools - hammer, handsaw, circ saw, but I've come to realize he never knew how to do really do anything with them. So I used them with impunity, and pretty lucky probably not to hurt myself. Not that I think I would have, but...
I have a boy on the way in June. It really scares me him doing the things I liked to do, like cutting boards with a circular saw. But I want him to know the right way to do things and will teach him that.
The area I grew up in was rural farmland. There was a big reservoir that had a building restriction until I was about 8. When they lifted that a building boom started like crazy of big expensive houses, which were way out of league with the few little houses on land that were out there before. My parents house is worth 4x what it was 20 years ago because of the boom. But there weren't a lot of kids my age and my childhood was playing in the woods and hanging around construction sites. So I'm lucky to do what I love.
I'm amazed as I've really started to know thyself how much of our childhoods create who/what we are as adults.
remodeler
Congratulations to you and your wife!
Jen
>Congratulations to you and your wife!
Thank you. It's been our most stressful year with job changes / pregnancy w/diabetes / major whole-house remodeling, other things. 1 more year to stick it out.
So what ages for teaching what tools? I'm figuring when my son is three - btw daughter too if that's what our next one is, my wife's grew up a tom-boy to boot - a handsaw, screwdriver, small hammer, and hand-drill. Five will probably be first power tools - drill press, at least. I cringe to think about teaching them to use the router / jointer / table saw. Those worry me each time I use them.
We have some good land and I'm going to grade out a go-kart track with banked hills, and weld up the go-kart I wanted when I was a kid. I figure 4 y.o. for riding it with the governor throttled way down. this is a subject of unagreed-upon discussion w/wifey.
remodeler
Well about 2 it was clear that I was going to be an electrical engineer. In fact at that age I had already invented a hot circuit tester.
I had stuck a bobbie pin in to an outlet and burned my hand. My mother made me promise that I would not do that again.
A few days later she heard me gasping and came in and found my hand over my mouth. She grap my hand away, squeasing it, thinking that I was choking on something. Any way it turned out that I burned my hand again.
My mother ask me why I done that and broken my promise. I point to a different outlet and said that was the one that I promised not to do it with. This was a different one. I had to test all of them to make sure that they where working.
Maybe it ment that I should have been a lawyer?
"It's been our most stressful year with job changes/pregnancy w/diabetes/ major whole house remodel..."
Man, you've got your hands full...it may sound trite, but in 10 years it will all be a faded memory. If your baby gets colic, hang on to your hat and everything else...our second came down with it at about 2 months...the longest 3 weeks of my life.
Started teaching my 10 yo to use a saber saw...comparatively safe. Had her use my little 8" miter saw once, but it gave me the shivers.
A table saw...maybe at around 18 yo, after they've had 5 years of martial arts training...my older ones didn't have any kind of focus until...well they still don't, and they're 23 and 20. They do safe stuff, like put together computers and drive trucks.
Take care...
Jen
We were so poor that entertainment for my bro and I consisted of digging holes in the yard, and nailing scraps of wood together. Brian is a framer/tilt up foreman, and I get paid to nail scraps of wood together.
Jennifer
"Hit the NAIL, dammit!"
Edited 2/22/2003 1:16:30 PM ET by Jencar
Jencar, in that first photo are you and your brother playing that game "see if you can hit my finger?" I played that game with my son until it suddenly became a mistake.
Nope, taking turns holding the nail to get it started...
thought of that years later when my old Journeyman said, "here, hold this 2x4 against that rafter block so I can hit it with a sledge hammer" had a momentary cringe reflex.
Jen
The way I see the kids picture is things never change. The woman is still telling the guys where to hit the nail. LOL!I'm all here....... 'cause I'm not all there!
(pssst...I worked with another lady carp once, and when it came to something really tough, she'd say "let the guys do it"...made me laugh)
Jen
My mom still talks about the times she came home to find the doors taken apart, hinges, doorknobs. All the outlet and switch covers off. The toaster taken apart. Ect.
I remind myself of a cartoon I saw once where the mom is going around the house and everything she picks up comes apart because the screws are gone. The end panel shows a little girl in her dad's shop holding a screwdriver in one hand, and a hand saw in the other, "Daddy, what does this do?"
Worst spanking I ever got was for cutting down a 3-4" tree with dads hand saw. Everytime we go by that house he says, "just imagine how big that tree would be now if you hadn't cut it. Of course, it's as big now as it'll ever get, but the points there.
I cring to remember how we treated some of dad's tools. One reason I keep some cheap ones around for my kids.
Oh well, once I figured out how things come apart, and go back together, I started building things. A 4 room treehouse made from scavenged items from the dump and straightening cans of rusty nails. A cinderblock fort. An underground fort. A fort on stilts. Childhood was fun. Got to build my kids some kind of fort.
Worst whipping my bro and I ever got (with a redwood slat on our bathing suited rears) was after we decided to turn the washroom into a swimming pool...put towels across the bottoms of the doors and let the utility sink overflow...we had a good 6" of water in there, paddling around with all the trash etc floating with us...knew we were gonna get it good when we saw the look on his face(fired the babysitter, too)
Neighbors kids had an underground fort about 10 ft diam. with tunnels radiating out, all covered with plywood...we weren't allowed to dig up the lawn too much...we built a tree house too, fell out twice before I learned to hang on. Keep promising my daughter we'd build a treehouse...this year, for sure!
Jennifer
I was lucky, my parents added a few dumptruck loads of dirt on the side of the house, so the hill was on the property line, not 3' from the foundation. This gave us space where we could build dams with the hose, drove my mom nuts because of the mess. And dad let us dig a fort out. Then helped us put a log and plank roof on. He let us select some logs to leave long when we went into the woods to get firewood. Think most of the planks were scraps given to us from a sawmill near our house. Most were probably older then I was.
I try to keep in mind that many of my best memories were when I was doing things that made the yard look awful. That drove my mom nuts, and that were really really messy. But, if we were willing to wear old clothes, clean off with the hose, and strip outside, we could get away with a lot. Yeah, we always did it that way too.<G>
I read somewhere that kids that were raised in Condos, apts. or nice tidy tract homes with perfect yards had the highest rates of delinquency, vandalism, etc. One of the authors conclusions was that these kids had never been allowed to range around the woods, there were no creeks to catch pollywogs and build dams, and weren't allowed to dig holes in the yard!
I agree...video games are a poor substitute...
Jen
I read an article once from a lady who lived in the woods. She'd gone into the city to take care of her sister's kids for a few days.
Pretty soon the kids were bored. Told them to go outside and do something, being used to her kids ranging the woods, buiding forts, digging, playing with the dogs & horses, ect.. Kids come back in, there's nothing to do.
She looks around, can't very well dig up the expensive profesionally landscaped yard. No parks in walking distance. Nowhere to roam or play. She suddenly realises they're right, and starts feeling sorry for her sister's kids. All they have to amuse themselves is videos, videogames, malls.
Said it really made her appreciate living in the country.
My kids have bikes, outside toys, places they can dig (though the holes are annoying), eventually a fort, a few tools they can bang around with. Haven't had hardly any snow this year though. They still waste a lot of time with the video games, but they're pretty good at making up games too. Even in a condo, you have to turn off the tv and teach them to entertain themselves. It's just harder.
Amazes me when their friends come over, they're so excited when we build a fire in the back yard and roast some hotdogs, or when we let the kids help us make some cookies. Seems many parents don't let the kids help them with anything, though it's annoying, you have to teach them how to do things themselves.
My wife does freak some when I let the kids use the drill press, scrollsaw, sanders, ect.. Can't wait to see the look on her face when we get to the tablesaw, though that's a few years off. She's a bit more protective then I am.
Paid the kids to tear out some sheetrock for me last Saturday. About an 8' wall. They spent hours wearing it down with their hammers. My daughter's kind of scary with one, bumped it against her goggles a couple times swinging back, didn't concern her at all, worried me, didn't tell mom. They even helped clean up the mess, two 30 gallon trash cans worth. Of course, that's because they knew up front payment was contingent of cleaning up. Took them so long I had to find another project to work on, so I installed some ceiling fans.
I think I'm still a kid at heart.
The table saw and router table should be off limits to some grownups I know... Had my kids help tear out drywall once...showed em they could kick right through it between studs...breakin stuff gives you a feeling of power!
Good on ya that you let your daughter help...(my girls are both tom boys like mom...get along better with boys if they're not gurlie girls "eek, you want me to touch THAT?") My half sister has been raised on a farm in MO, practical as all get out, fun lovin and hell raisin...not like the girls in LA "I'm so sensitive and complicated, no man can ever really understand me" what a pain...can understand why men think women are weird...;)
Nice to know men aren't the only ones to think women are weird.
What I don't understand is that my wife says I'm weird too.
My first tendencies should have been reasons for NOT going into construction. When I was about two I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. Hanging out with grandpa during his projects resulted in more than one trip to the hospital.
My dad is not very construction oriented so he didn't have very many of the tools. I had to talk my mom into letting me buy a circular saw when I was about 12.
Scott R, wow a circular saw at 12 is some vote of parent confidence!
I remember my dad's handsaw. It was so dull about like cutting with a file. My dad had so few tools and I was so into building I think that's why I am such a tool nut.
Tendancies were toward mimicing DAD. He was an engineer and for part of his career a teacher at a voc-Tech school. He enlisted (hired) his Master Carpenter co-worker to help him build an addition on the house when I was about 3years old. I have pics of me as a young 'in' playing with Dad's tools. I'll have to scan them and post them.
I'm now the Engineer (He still is too) and I'm now the owner of the moneypit and planning on all sorts of improvements. (addition on the top of the list). Eventually I'd love to be financially secure enough to leave the desk job and take a try at the building market (starting at the bottom of the ladder, of course) but until I win the lottery, or get willed some dough from a rich relative that I didn't know I had......
Anyway, great reading about builder's experiences and early develpments. Gives me hope that I will be able to keep the homestead and do the job I dream of.
Thanks for reading!
Jeff from Northeastern MA
(the Newbie to the forums)
Early indications were that I wanted to be farmer. I did however build a city out of kleenex boxes and mud, but there are no photos of my spectacular creation.
There is a (far too often shown) picture of me "helping" with the mastic for the replacement linoleum kitchen tiles in my grandparent's 110 year old farmhouse--aged about 2. I was about 12 before I learned that not everyone moved every 26 months without fail. This meant I spent a lot of time in not-quite-right houses, that the family improved. The improvements were on a need versus time versus budget basis. I think I picked up the remodeling "bug" then. Living in houses with varying levels of design may have pushed me into studying architecture. When I bought a house, I was not surprised that it was 51 years old--with plenty of "needful" work. Now, all I need do is find a job "less" in construction, and "more" in architecture or the like (cobbler's kids have no shoes; carpenter's house has no shingles, etc. :)).
My dad built houses since the 50's and when he had enough business in the early 60's, he bought a mildly used Massey Ferguson TO35 tractor to do some of his own dirt work. When I was 5 he put me on that tractor to mow the field behind the house. I didn't have enough #### to push down on the clutch so he told me when I was done to turn off the key. After that, I was on a dozer by 7 and the rest is history.
I still have that old tractor,
John
J.R. Lazaro Builders, Inc.
Indianapolis, In.
http://www.lazarobuilders.com
JOHN_LAZARO, that's a good one. Your dad knew how to get the most out of his men.
Hope you'll think of me if you ever decide you have to get rid of that tractor..................(-:How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?
I'm keeping the tractor.....you want some kids?
John
J.R. Lazaro Builders, Inc.
Indianapolis, In.
http://www.lazarobuilders.com
Kids ??
Well, I always wanted a little girl. Got 2 boys instead.
Maybe we could work something out - wanna loan 'em out for the summer ???..............(-:We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, "You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms." - Elayne Boosle
I guess I need to run an ad:
"Wanted: good tractor - will trade 2 little girls ages 4 and 1-1/2"
:)John
J.R. Lazaro Builders, Inc.
Indianapolis, In.
http://www.lazarobuilders.com
Send me an email - We'll negotiate.........................(-:When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.