Saturday, August 22, 2015

Getting There

As you likely know, I am renovating and adding onto a small “accessory building” on the property I purchased almost two and a half years ago in downtown Salida. The first stage of the building project felt like riding in a rattletrap around potholes on an unpaved road through hilly country in a downpour with someone else steering. I grumbled a lot.

The relationship with the contractor I had hired fizzled. The requirement to make the property ADA compliant created an unanticipated financial load. One building code requirement after another challenged my every move. And, to top it off, failed right and left hip replacement surgeries literally knocked me off my feet. During that time, I often wondered whether I had veered off course when I purchased the property.

13 August 15 wall-raising

But last week, when my framers gracefully raised a new wall for the back building, I gratefully acknowledged that the components of the project are now falling into place. For example:

Several weeks ago, I was looking for a decorative architectural element to break up the expanse of the new 17 x 24’ terrace off the back of the main building. It struck me that a cast iron tree grate set in the concrete would be stunning, so I visited the local Neenah foundry distribution lot. A tree grate in the catalog caught my eye, but at something like $800, the price was prohibitive. Fortunately, the supervisor of the lot produced an alternative—a 5’-square grate that could not be sold because the frame was missing. He had kept the grate because it was too beautiful to dispose of. But he sold it to me for $100—and then volunteered to deliver it to the building in Salida, a 280-mile, 6-hour round trip from Denver. I can’t imagine what a freight company would have charged to transfer the 400-pound load. All the supervisor asked for was the price of a tank of gas.

5-ft. 400 lb. cast iron tree grate set 22 June 15

More recently, needing a strategy for draining a  terrace off the main entry to my back building, I called a civil engineering firm in nearby Lafayette. After finding a creative way to reach someone in an office that has no receptionist, I ended up meeting with the president. After spending an hour making calculations based on the topographical survey of my plot and the elevation drawings of my building, she suggested a plan. I asked her to mail me the invoice. She declined to charge me. I thanked her with a copy of my book Dancing Girl.

Thursday before last, I visited a construction company in Salida (DSI) to find out whether they would roof the addition to the back building. I knew my timing was off; I should have arranged for the roofing weeks earlier. And the dry wall installation. And the finish carpentry.  (To my credit, I lined up a brick mason, a plumber, and an electrician in good time; I ordered doors, windows, and hardware far in advance; and I’ll probably paint the interior myself.) Who knows why the CEO of the construction company greeted me on my way in, postponed his departure for an off-site appointment, and gave me contact information for an independent roofer and a retired builder. Within 24 hours, the roofer committed to the job, and the retired builder referred me to a drywall installer and a finish carpenter, both of whom said yes. As I wrote in a thank you note to the CEO, I struck gold when my path crossed his. When I returned on another errand this past week, the project manager at DSI assured me that I'm doing fine as general contractor, and I'm saving a lot of money. To seal the deal, he invited me to contact him any time for names of reputable sub-contractors. This is DSI! This is Salida!

19 August 15 almost ready for brick veneer

So how does the building project feel now? Like cruising along a paved shotgun roadway in fair weather with the top down and the volume turned up on the CD player! I am playing Zorba the Greek, of course, and I am behind the wheel.


Remember, I’ll let you know when we "get there.”


Saturday, May 16, 2015

Personal Landscape

A-1 Construction, Salida, Colorado 15 May 2015

In Salida yesterday, when I was waiting for the concrete truck to arrive for the back-bldg-addition-cellar-wall pour, I ducked into neighboring Book Haven bookstore to get out of a light rain. While scanning the titles on the shelves, I noticed Lawrence Durrell’s Justine, which I have never read, and had a look inside. When I got home last eve, I opened the Writer’s Chronicle May/Summer 2014 edition, which had just arrived in the mail, to find an article about Durrell by Linda Lappin. Had I not looked at one of his books earlier in the day, I might not have turned immediately to the cover story, “Books and Islands: On Reading Lawrence Durrell in Greece.” Because I am exploring the role that both Elika and Salida have played and will continue to play in my life, the following paragraph held particular meaning for me:
Traveling is, [Lawrence Durrell] suggests, “a science of intuitions” vital to the artist “who is always looking for nourishing soils in which to put down roots and create.” We are all looking for our “correspondences,” he states, for a personal landscape “where you suddenly feel bounding with ideas”*—a place where landscape and imagination merge to make new worlds and new stories. In his early phase of his writing career, his personal landscape of correspondences was the Greek island of Corfu. [Lappin, p. 36]
I look forward to sharing with you the stories that will emerge from the river-rock-studded substrate upon which I am building a life in Salida.
*Lawrence Durrell, “Landscape and Character,” Spirit of Place: Letters & Essays on Travel, (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p. 160.