100 Day Project - Day 1
This is a picture of my dad, working on "straightening the walls" in my house. If you don't know what "straightening the walls" means, well, that's a post for another day. The focus here is on my dad's shirt. When I noticed that it said, "I love the smell of plywood in the morning," I burst out laughing and thought, 'OMG, me TOO!' The smell of freshly cut lumber reminds me of my childhood. It had been by dad's dream to build his own house, and so he built ours one freshly-cut piece of lumber at a time (no, he didn't cut down and mill the trees also, but if that had been a practical option, he may have considered it). Seeing something as important as a house taking shape before your eyes in your childhood influences your ideas of what you can do for yourself, and what you can create with your own two hands... anything. I can build anything.
Family lore tells the story that I was barely a year old when my parents purchased the piece of land on which they built their house. They were looking for land at an affordable price - a large enough piece to give them 'a little privacy,' so the neighbors couldn't 'see into their windows,' was how they liked to put it. They were first attracted to a piece of land about a mile away - a small stream ran through the front yard of that piece and they thought, how charming! But that piece was out of their price range, so they continued looking and ultimately found the one they purchased - a two acre plot with a stately tree at the top of a hill. We three ate a picnic lunch under that tree and soon after, construction began. My dad worked on the house every weekend, and we kids spent summer days in the yard, playing in the sand unearthed by the excavation for the basement. We kids built our own homes - forts cobbled together with small discarded pieces of lumber, cedar shingles, bent and dropped nails, and other assorted construction detritus. Through it all wafted the scent of freshly cut lumber - pine 2x4s, cedar shake shingles, and plywood. Other smells remind me of childhood, too. Wet cement reminds me of when we mixed and poured the cement for the basement and garage floors; tarpaper reminds me of how we were never allowed to run around the house without shoes AND socks before my dad installed the flooring because the tarpaper on the sub flooring would turn our socks BLACK. It's the smell of the lumber that I like best, though. That's the smell that conjures up the start of the project; it symbolizes setting out on the path of your dream... the excitement and wonder are all head of you, and you realize that with your own two hands, you can do it.
