© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
© irene waters 2017
This week’s prompt ‘Satisfaction’ had me thinking. What satisfies me. Certainly food satisfies my appetite. Is it a lasting satisfaction however. How many meals can I remember in great detail because of the amount of satisfaction they gave me at the time. I could probably recount them using one hand, two at the most.
The more I thought about the word satisfaction the more I became convinced that the things in my life that satisfied me the most were projects I finished and finished well. In May I was awarded my Masters of Arts. That was satisfying, I’d worked hard and completed. A major achievement in itself but it was nowhere near as satisfying as when we built our house – with our own bare hands.
I was in charge of the project as Roger had used his owner builder certification to do major renovations on a cottage we had prior to buying the land. A builder friend directed us and we were the lackeys in this project. By the end we were convinced we knew everything there was to know about building.
We purchased a PAL kit home with a steel frame and after having a cement slab laid by professionals we set to erecting. It wasn’t long before we went wrong. My fault. I didn’t know how to read the plans and I butted two of the frames together but the wrong way. Luckily Roger realised that the house was going to be too long for the slab and we started again. That was my only plan reading error.
Putting the roof on posed major problems. We had a hip roof and the trusses were large and heavy. We laid the truss flat on the frame and with a rope we attempted to pull it to vertical. With only the two of us, one person was required to pull, the other to stop it going too far and falling the other direction and the non-existent person needed to screw it to the frame. All day we tried to get it up but in reality with me being the labourer we were a man short. Luckily it was Veterans Comp Day at the golf club just down the road so we comandeered a few oldies to come and assist and got the first one up. The second one we managed as we left it partially unmade and completed it when we got it up. It still took a long time and a lot of effort. We ended up employing a labourer to help us. From that point the work went ahead quickly.
After the house was finished we turned the grounds into a park.
The amount of satisfaction we both got from this project was immense and remains with us today.
In response to weekly photo challenge
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 