Heller and Shannon: Bit-by-bit

One of the new people who requested a connection on PluggedIn asked “What are your plans for lodging? Do you already have a place to stay?”

“Anita” responded

I am at a loss for what I am going to live.

In my culture, my father would contact his brothers or his older cousins and one of them would open up his house for me to stay.

They would promise my father that they would look after me and protect my virtue just like he would.

That will not be possible because my father does not have any family in Michigan. Even if he did, I would not want to stay with them because that would make it impossible for me to experience your culture.

At first I thought I wanted to be near the university because there is night-life, but then I realized that there is a chance that students from Indonesia would recognize me and word would get back to my father.

So if it is possible, I want to live in a private home and be invited to private parties but I don’t know how to look for those opportunities.

-Anita Santosa

***

Heller was laying block.

Every night he had time after work to lay about three courses of block before it got dark.

Shannon would beat him to the work-site and have a fresh batch of slow-set mortar, a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of iced tea waiting for him when he pulled in.

Shannon was fascinated by the process of using chalk-line to run a straight course from corner-to-corner. She was also fascinated as he built up the corners last so they would be set for the next night’s work. He even let her get experience in using the level to nudge the block in-or-out so the corner was set vertical and true.

“High-tech is handy but sometimes it is more of a pain-in-the-ass than it is worth” Heller told her.

Another thing he told her was “A foundation wall set true-and-square is a house half built.”

A serious mason could have laid up the wall quicker than Heller managed. He hadn’t done a lot of block-laying but he knew the motions. More important, he could recognize when something was wrong before the mortar set.

The team was working to the plans Kim Bockbeck had picked out.

Uncle Ed was fabricating the roof-trusses and roof-sections. He was also fabricating the shelving. Kim had chosen vertical ladder-section type shelving with 1-by-8s for shelves. 

Kim wanted to have some flexibility, so Heller was mortaring in “nailer blocks” above the fourth and eighth courses of blocks down the entire length of each wall. “Nailer blocks” are horizontal, treated 2-by-4s that “furniture” can be screwed into.

Another oddity is that Kim opted for a full, eleven courses of blocks which seemed extravagantly tall. When Heller asked her why she wanted it that tall, she responded “It is so I can use standard doors in it.”

That made sense to Heller. There is no shortage of “used” doors on the market as people remodel or from demo work and the time and cost of adding another row or two of blocks wasn't that big. Sometimes designing around something is a good idea and doors is probably one of them. Most doors have a hollow core and trying to make one shorter leaves the bottom or top unsupported.