Framing 69th Street

With the foundation in place and set up, we were able to begin framing the walls.  The began with laying out the walls on the slab and on the foundation walls with chalk lines, using the 3-4-5 triangle to square up the lines.  The appropriate length studs were nailed to the "sill plate" (bottom) and to the top plate.  With a ceiling height of 8 feet, the studs were 92 1/4", which allows for the 1-1/2" sill plate and 3 inches for a double top plate.  This totals 96 3/4", which allows for a drywall ceiling and still leaves room for two rows of 4' drywall below the ceiling.

My brother Don had a lot of experience framing homes.  He had worked with various contractors in home construction, and knew how to make the layout and mark the top and bottom plates.  We did not have pneumatic (air) nail guns, so we bought the 8d and 16d (d = penny) nails by the 50 pound box, and drove each nail into the ends of each stud, two at the top and two at the bottom.  After Don laid out the walls, we would assemble them, nailing in the studs, with headers and trimmers at all windows and doors.  Then we would raise the wall from horizontal to vertical.  The exterior walls would have to be lifted over the anchor bolts and secured with washers and nuts.

Framing is a fun activity, because it looks like a lot is being accomplished.  We were fortunate to have lots of extended family members who wanted to join in on the "fun."

I had ordered most of my lumber from Western Lumber, in El Cajon.  But we ran out of 2X4 studs. I remembered seeing ads for studs at the Home Base in El Cajon for 67 cents each.  I sent Kathy over there with my blue Dodge cargo van to pick up a load of 300.  She reported that she got quite the reaction when she walked in and asked "I would like 300 studs please."

As we raised each wall, we braced it with long 2X4s  with a slight lean outward, so that the perpendicular wall could be raised, then the corners could be nailed together.  Don was good at "teaching" us how this was to be done.  In reality he did all the critical stuff.

Once all the exterior walls were raised, he had us pull a string along each wall, from end to end, and we straightened it by pushing it or pulling it in or out until the walls were straight and braced securely.  He had sway bracing, corner bracing, and bracing to stakes on the outside.  We also had sheets of shear panel which were nailed at each corner to sturdy up the wall.  Once all of this was done, we framed the interior walls of the lower floor.  With all the lower floor's walls laid out and securely plumbed and braced, we then proceeded to install the floor joists.

My brother Maynard liked to bring his family over when ever we had lots of plywood to nail down.  So after the floor joists were securely in place, his family came over and made quick work of nailing down the plywood sheathing.

Then we started the wall layout and raising all over again for the upstairs floor.  After squaring up and securing the upper walls, we put up the ceiling joists. and sheathing that would serve as the attic floor.  The main attic roof called for 30 foot long 2X8 rafters.  These were not readily available, and would have had to be special ordered.  So we had to do some re-designing to accommodate shorter lengths of 2X6 rafters supported on beams with angle supports.  Once we framed the attic, we were amazed how large it was!  Had we known how spacious it would be, we could have used it for living space in some way, perhaps eliminating the lower level.  But as it turned out, it is an amazing storage area.

The roof over the living room and kitchen was designed using trusses, which span the full width of the house from front to back.  They went up rather quickly. But before we could put on the shiplap (starter board) and plywood for the roof, we had to put up the fascia.  Being afraid of heights, this was the most intimidating to me!  After cutting the rafter and truss tails in a straight line,  Don and I would take the 2X8 resawn lumber and lean out over the edge to nail it onto the tails.

With more nails to be driven, Maynard's family proved to be invaluable. First the starter board was nailed onto the overhangs.  This would be followed by the plywood sheathing for the roof.

Getting Started on 69th Street

Christmas 1988

With the permitting process behind us, we were excited to get started framing our new home. 

For Christmas that year we gave each of our six children a hard hat and their personal hammer.  We wanted them to feel a part of the project.

But before we could begin framing, first the foundation had to be done properly.  We outlined the footings on the building pad.  It sure looked like a small house as we gazed upon the footprint from up the street.

I rented a backhoe.  I think my brother, Don, did most of the digging, but I probably took a turn on the equipment.  I was surprised that not only did we need the trenches around the outside of the house and down the middle where the bearing wall was to be built, but there were substantial footings under the stairway as well.  We also had to trench for the underground sewer lines, and install the sewer pipes before the form inspection.

We were doing the footings and forms in the month of December.  I was too cheap to rent a porta-potty, so we would drive over to the park, about a quarter mile away, when necessary to use a restroom.

The southwest corner of the house required a combination retaining wall & footing.  Rather than spend a lot of extra money on hiring an engineer to design the retaining footing, we opted to use the county approved design that had an oversized footing that required lots of rebar (steel reinforcing bars) and lots of concrete.  The base of the footing was 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep, plus the 3 1/2' concrete stem wall above it that retained the dirt on those two sides.

We had a couple rain storms during the forming process, and I remember having to bail out the water so we could work in that deep and wide trench.

We borrowed electricity from a neighbor across the street so that I would not have to pay to put in a temporary power pole.  We ran a long extension cord across the street to power our saw to cut the forming lumber.

We were fortunate to have extended family willing to help on the project. My two sisters and their husbands (and families) came from northern California, and I had two brothers in town and their families who also helped us get ready for placing the concrete in the forms.  After the forms were in place and the trenches were cleaned out, we put down two inches of "clean washed sand", covered with a sheet of Visqueen plastic as a moisture barrier, which was covered by two more inches of sand.

With the sand in place, we began tying the rebar.  There were two pieces of 1/2" rebar in the bottom and two at the top of all the trenches.  Then we placed 1/2" rebar every 24" across the slab, in both directions, supported on "dobies" so that it would be in the center of the concrete slab.

Once the forms were in place and the rebar tied, we called for the form inspection, which we passed without any problems.

The next big hurdle came the day we placed the concrete.  Fortunately my brother, Don, had some experience placing and finishing concrete, and I had worked with him on the driveway in Inglewood.  So we took on doing the finishing ourselves.  Truckload after truckload of concrete were emptied as we filled the footings and then the slab.  We were fortunate that all the areas needing concrete could be accessed using the truck's chute.  This saved us a lot of money that it could have cost had we needed to have the concrete pumped.

 There was always the concern of "cold joints" as we experienced time between trucks.  After the next to the last truck was unloaded, we had to hurry and calculate how much more concrete was needed to complete the job, and the truck driver radioed dispatch to let them know how much to send in the final truck.   In an attempt to minimize the cold joint problem, the edge of the concrete was raked thin, and the new concrete was worked into the edge to help them join together.

Foundation bolts ("J-bolts") were placed in the appropriate locations while the concrete was still fresh.  After the final truckload was emptied, the driver washed out his chutes and was on his way.  Of course we had to screed the concrete to the correct thickness as the slab was placed.  And someone tamped it to work the larger rock down below the surface.  Then we ran a float across the surface to help smooth it and bring more slurry to the surface so it would trowel easier.  The fresh concrete needed just the right amount of time to begin setting up before we could begin finishing it.  Working it too much, too early, just extended the setup time, before it could be troweled.  Waiting too long, it becomes too hard to trowel properly.

When it was firm enough to walk on, I helped Don place the power trowel (a gas powered machine that resembles an over-sized buffing machine with several trowel shaped feet on it).  This allowed him to finish the expansive area of the slab fairly quickly.  Once he was done, we still went out on knee boards and hand finished the concrete floor.

It was a long day, and we were beat by the time we were able to go home!

The City Engineer

It has been so long, I forget the sequence of events regarding the permit process with the City of Lemon Grove.

I do remember it taking an extremely long time to get a permit from the City.  First we needed the grading permit. This required getting approval from the Zoning Department.  We wanted to build as far up the hill as possible, to leave as much land as possible on the other end of the lot, for a future lot split.  We also were trying to get the house as far up hill as possible so that we would not have to pump the sewer for the lower level.

Since we had an odd shaped lot, due to the swath of land taken by the county by eminent domain for the now abandoned College Avenue Extension, it was a challenge to position the house on the lot and meet all the setback requirements. The city's map showed a cul-de-sac along the front (west) side of the lot, ending at the top (south end) of the parcel.  The Director of the Zoning Department helped me understand that there is some zoning code that allowed in a situation like this, to use the side yard for the front yard setback.  And since it was a triangular shaped lot, there is a code that says you measure the back yard set back from a line drawn parallel with the front property line, and measuring 10 feet long.  But we still needed to maintain a 10 foot setback from the property line to the nearest corner of the building.  Once we got all that worked out, and approved by the Zoning Department, it was on to Engineering.  That was one of the slowest and most unpleasant aspects of the permit process.  The City Engineer would require a change to the plan.  I would have my draftsman draw the change, and resubmit it.  Then it would sit on the Engineer's desk for a week or two before he would give it back to me asking for another minuscule change.  Of course each change would take my draftsman a week or so to draw up.  So back and forth, our patience wore thin.  The final item the City Engineer required was that we show a five foot long swale at the north corner of the building site for rainwater runoff.  The funny part of all this is that the swale never was made, because the driveway served for the rainwater runoff.

Plan check for the house plans went equally slow.  Every required change took a week for the draftsman and two weeks for the City plan checker.  I would say that it took nearly six months to get our plans approved and stamped so we could begin building.

In addition to the building permit fees (which included fees for plan check, and fees calculated per electrical outlet and fixture, each plumbing fixture, square feet of living space, square feet of garage & storage, etc.) , we were hit with "Park Fees" of $200, and the major expense were the school fees, which, if I recall correctly were about $2.50 per square foot of living space.  Once our fees were paid, we were permitted to proceed with building the new house!

Setback

Since we were trading services with Lee for the grading, it seemed that it was not on the top of his priority list.  Or perhaps it was because he was waiting for more dirt.  But the grading just seemed to be taking a long time to complete.

One evening Kathy was driving a van load of scouts from our troop over to the Bonita Building for a Court of Honor.  This was back before the freeway.  She had to turn onto Valley Road from the two lane highway that was referred to as the "South Bay Freeway".  There wasn't a traffic light there.  As she made the left turn onto Valley Road, she was broadsided by a motorcyclist.  This unexpected event threw a wrench into the works.  Lee never discussed it with me, but it seemed he stopped working on our job, perhaps out of fear that we might lose the property.  We had $50,000 liability insurance on the van, which was not very much considering he hit her at nearly 60 miles per hour, with no helmet.  (After three months in a medically induced coma, the motorcyclist began a long recovery process.)

Soon we received papers regarding the dreaded lawsuit.  Kathy was called in for depositions.  We were not sure we would come out of this situation financially intact.  There was a good chance we would lose everything.  There was a lot of emotional turmoil as well.  As each month passed, we saw little if any progress on the grading.  We stressed over the outcome of the lawsuit.  Life just was not fun at the point. 

Nearly a year after the accident, as I was perusing the lawsuit papers, I noticed that it named "Does 1 through 20", but I did not see Kathy's name listed in the suit.  I talked to Tom's wife, Terry (our neighbors) about this.  She seemed to be a bit more knowledgeable then I was.  She explained that in a law suit they often put "Does" (like John Doe) into the lawsuit to include anyone that may be liable, but was overlooked when they first filed the paperwork.  But Terry said that Kathy could not be considered as one of the Does, since she was the primary defendant.

I called the attorney who was representing us from our auto insurance company and brought this to his attention.  He called the plaintiff's attorney and explained the situation, and offered him one last chance to accept the $50,000.00 settlement.  By this time a year had passed, and apparently there was some technicality why he could not file a personal injury lawsuit after that much time had passed.  So the defendant's attorney hurriedly tried to have his client declared "incompetent", so the time limit would not apply.  But for some reason that did not happen.  They accepted the settlement, and the issue was favorably resolved for us.

After one long year of stress and concern, things seemed to return to "normal".  Lee found a source for lots of free dirt, and was able to finish the grading to an elevation were downstairs sewer, with slope, ended up being about three feet above the connection point in the street. 

The "Propadirty'

My dad gave me some house plan magazines he had purchased, and I may have bought one or two myself.  We poured over the various house plans for many months.

My dad had built a split level home, and I had seen several others, and I liked the idea of building a split level home to live in.  They were more popular at the time.  My brother, Don, accompanied me to the lot, and we measured off the footprint to see how a split level home would lay out on the terrain.  We discovered that in the width of the house the slope dropped about 8 to 10 feet, and for some reason we came to the conclusion that a split level would not work.  So we decided we would need to have the lot graded to provide a pad to build on.

Eventually we found a plan we liked.  The magazines offered the opportunity to purchase blueprints from them for a very reasonable cost.  The plans even came with engineer stamps.  Unfortunately there was some hitch that we had to have a draftsman draw up the plans.  Perhaps the engineers were not registered in California, or something.

So as we discussed the plan with the draftsman, he asked what features we thought we would like in a home.  I mentioned columns in the front, and perhaps a big clock on the front, and the idea of a split level.  What came out of that, since we didn't have a deep enough lot for columns and a covered porch, we ended up with a pop-out on each side of the porch.  And below the center of the peek of the roof line, we have a big round vent (pseudo-clock), and we have a "split entry".

To get to the stage where we could build, we first had to get the grading done.  I engaged Lee Burch, who was a member of a merchant exchange group that I was a member of at the time.  I was able to do some work for him on an historic home he had moved onto his property and was restoring, in exchange for a portion of the costs involved in grading the lot.  Initially there was a concern that we might have to pump the sewer from the downstairs bathroom.  I mentioned this to Lee, and he said "don't worry about it.  I can bring in as much dirt as you need."

After going through a lot of hoops with the City of Lemon Grove, and lots of red tape, and paying big bucks, we got a grading permit so Lee could get started leveling the pad.  Through his contacts he lined up some free dirt, as well as some where we had to pay "half trucking", depending how badly the other excavator needed a place to dump, and how far away they were.

Of course the project was the center of many of our family activities.  We were always going over to "the property", or talking about "the property."  By this time Alan was a toddler, and when he would talk about "the property", he pronounced it "propadirty".  It was cute, and to this day we will often refer to a lot we are going to work on or look at as "the propadirty."

In pursuit of the dream

Still wanting to pursue the dream, we decided to plant fruit trees along the property line, so that they could become established while we were working toward the goal of someday building a home there.  (See the First Presidency Message for January:  The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago!)

So in between 1981 and 1982 we put in a water line so we could plant and water trees.  This entailed getting a permit from the City of Lemon Grove.  I also had to pay what I thought was a significant amount of money to Helix Water District for a water meter.  I think I paid about $300, if I remember correctly.

We would take the family over to work on the trees on Saturdays.  One Saturday in 1983 we drove over to work in the blue Dodge work van.  Alan was an infant, and Kathy had him in his car seat, secured in the front passenger seat with a seat belt.  The van was parked at the top of the hill, at the southwest corner of our property.  We were working on the other side of the lot, weeding, watering trees, maybe even planting.  I looked up to see the van begin to roll down the hill.  I frantically ran toward the van, not realizing that there was nothing I could do to stop it without perhaps getting run over.  But that is a mute point, because I couldn't run fast enough to reach the van before it rolled past me.  It crossed the road and took out a section of the neighbor's fence and their mailbox.  It continued across their driveway and rolled off their bank to their lower pad, where it took out one leg of their lattice-covered parking structure before rolling over the next bank and coming to a stop when it ran into a tree.  When I arrived, the van was stopped, and fortunately the passengers were unharmed.  Eric, then a toddler, was in the driver's seat.  Apparently he managed to release the parking brake, and had jiggled the gear shift lever enough to pull it out of "Park", which allowed gravity to do what it does best.

I spent some time the following week repairing a fence, a mailbox, a parking structure, and a damaged part of the power steering system.  All-in-all, the property damage was minimal, and bodily injury was insignificant.

As the years passed, I kept thinking how my dad built his "dream house" too late for the family to live in it.  When the house was complete, I was just finishing High School and heading off to college.  My three older brothers had also left home.  So their "at home" family now would consist of my two younger sisters.  It was at this time that he was called to serve as the Mission President of the Mexico West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  When they returned, only my youngest sister lived with them at home for several years before heading off to college.

I was afraid that might become my reality as well, if we didn't start building soon.

Lemon Grove Property

Early on, even while we were living in a rented apartment in El Cajon in 1974, we had been married for two years and I was beginning to feel the desire of home ownership. 

By this time I was working at Wimsatt Carpet, becoming a tradesman, learning to install carpet.

I remembered that my parents owned some vacant land in Lemon Grove.  After they had moved to San Diego, the Tanners and they went together in the purchase of about four acres in Lemon Grove, a part of San Diego County, just outside San Diego City limits.  They each ended up with a two acre parcel.  The Tanners went ahead and began building a two story home, but moved in after the first story was complete, and never completed the second floor.  Years later, the County of San Diego acquired a strip out of the middle of their property through eminent domain, with the plan of extending College Avenue up to the intersection of 69th Street and Mt. Vernon.  This also took out the Tanner home, which was demolished, leaving only the concrete foundation.

After the section was taken for College Avenue, my parents were left with two irregularly shaped parcels, one on each side of the phantom road.

The community rose up in objection and eventually caused the demise of the road extension project.  Of course the acquired land remained in the name of the County of San Diego.

So in 1974, as a young married couple eager to get started in life, we made an offer to buy one of the lots from my parents.  Wishing to be fair to all their children, they contacted each of them to see if anyone else was interested in buying the land, before accepting our offer of $5,000.00 for the lot that was .59 acre, on the west side of the never-to-be-completed College Avenue extension.  We made payments of $50 per month until it was paid off.

During 1975 & 1976 Kathy and I completed our bachelor degrees at Brigham Young University, and graduated.  Then we went to Inglewood, CA where I earned my MBA and we had the remodeling experience at 515 N. Main Street.

In 1977 Lemon Grove became incorporated as a city.

Late in the summer of 1979 we purchased a 4 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom home in Spring Valley.  I set up the front bedroom/den as a home office.  But I built some shelf units which we used as partitions to divide the room in half, to provide a "play room" for the children.

We rented a small store in El Cajon, where we established our "family owned" business.  My parents were anxious to see us succeed, and provided a lot of assistance.  My mom tended the "showroom" while I would be out doing estimates or installation.  Having lived in the area for so many years, they had lots of contacts, which provided some initial sales to get things rolling.  Eventually I hired someone to take mom's place, as her other interests demanded her time.

In addition to building the business, we still kept alive our interest in developing the property in Lemon Grove.  Initially we looked into building a "CAPP Home", which was package home that sold pre-cut pieces of lumber, materials, and supplies.  (Think of it as a huge Lincoln Log kit).  The main advantage would have been the financing they could have provided.  I don't remember why that never materialized.  Maybe I didn't qualify for their financing plan.

One day I saw an ad in the paper by a contractor lady who offered to build a home for what seemed a very reasonable price. We contacted her, and even got as far along as having the southwest corner of the property staked by a surveyor.  But as the negotiations proceeded, this fell through when we learned that FHA would not finance a home on a dirt road.  This all took place in the early 1980's.

Inglewood, California

While working on my MBA at Cal State LA, we lived in a triplex on Market Street in Inglewood, California.  Across the street from where we lived was a rental house at 515 N. Market Street, Inglewood, CA.  It was an old Victorian style house, and the yard was not kept up.  The tenants had dogs living in the house with them, and parked their cars on what once was a front lawn.  One day I noticed a "For Sale" sign in front of the house, and the tenants were gone.

My parents must have set a good example for me in regards to home ownership.  So my sights were set on buying a home some day.  The opportunity seemed to present itself to me at that time.  We looked into it, and eventually made an offer to buy the house for $25,000.00.  I don't know how we managed, but we scraped together $2,500.00 for the down payment.

While working for Wimsatt Carpets before going back to school, I had collected scraps of carpet that would have otherwise gone into the dumpster.  I brought the scraps of carpet up to Inglewood from San Diego and used them to carpet the living room.  Rather than use seam tape to put all those pieces together, I used an old carpet which I turned upside down, and with Multipurpose Adhesive, I glued the pieces to the back of the old carpet.  It was a patchwork of good quality carpet.  It served the purpose.  And it was cheap.  And it became a conversation piece.

Once we cleaned it up, we moved in.  The house was on a very deep lot, zoned R-3.  It was a two bedroom, one bathroom house with a kitchen and living room.  It had a shake shingle roof, which leaked, and there was a detached garage.

One of the early projects was to re-roof with Asphalt Composition Shingles.  I installed the new shingles directly over the old wood shingles, nailing them with a hammer and nails.  I didn't even know about roofing nail guns, if they even existed back then, nor would I have been able to afford one and a compressor.  So I did with what I had.  I'm sure I would not be proud of that job today, but at the time I was pretty proud of myself.  And it stopped the leaks.

The City of Inglewood had been through a period of blight, and was trying to rebuild itself.  So the City was offering low interest loans for home remodel projects.  We applied, and were granted a remodel loan.  So we set about to make some changes to the house.  We needed an additional bedroom because by then we had one boy and two girls, and Kathy was expecting our forth child.  So our plan included converting the back porch into an additional bedroom.  We put in a "laundry room" off the kitchen by making a 3' X 5' closet with the accordion doors. We also added a bathroom off the Master bedroom. My brother, Don came up and worked with me quite a bit, as we worked through this project together.  His major at BYU had exposed him to most aspects of home construction.  He had been involved in building several houses while in Provo, and later remodeled the house he purchased in Price, UT when he moved there to teach shop class in the local high school.  He taught me many aspects of construction while I worked with him.

When we had to open up some of the walls to begin the project, we discovered that the original walls were built the old fashion way, with actual slats of redwood lath which was covered with plaster (that's why it was called "lath and plaster.")  The studs were not planed smooth like they are today, so they actually measured 2" X 4".  Today, after being planed smooth, a 2X4 actually measures 1 1/2" X 3 1/2".

He taught me about working with concrete when we put in a concrete driveway.

He taught me plumbing, as we had to hook up the drain and water supply lines to the "laundry room" and the new bathroom.  And he taught me electrical wiring, as we had to install additional outlets, switches, and light fixtures.

He taught me framing as we put in a ceiling, walls and a door for the additional bedroom.  He taught me how to hang drywall, tape it, and texture after we insulated the new work.

Then we turned our attention to the kitchen, where we tore out the old counter top, and I installed new sheet vinyl flooring.  Kathy remembers well this aspect of the job, as it took way longer than any of us anticipated, and she had to wash the dishes in the bathtub and prepare meals with no counters.  She was a true pioneer.

We had a picture window in the living room.  It must have been cracked, because I remember the adventure we had replacing it.  It was about 4' X 6'.  I found a piece of glass from an old sliding door for sale for about $10, and purchased it.  A friend in our ward knew how to cut glass (he made stained glass windows for a hobby), so I talked him into cutting it for me.  He came over and we set up two saw horses in the living room to support the glass.  The front door was open.  The old glass may have already been out of the window.  He marked the glass, dipped his glass cutting wheel in oil, and with the use of a straight edge, he pulled it along the edge of the glass where it needed to be cut.  Then he attempted to snap the glass along the new score line.  But it was stubborn.  He tried again, but the glass resisted.  Then he began tapping along the score, to weaken the glass so it would break more easily.  All of a sudden the full sheet of glass exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces of glass.  It was so forceful we found pieces of glass way up the sidewalk in the front yard.  He then apologized to me that he had forgotten that tempered glass cannot be cut.  Fortunately no one was hurt.

Eventually I completed my MBA degree.  And eventually we complete the remodel project.  It was time to move on.  We decided to move back to San Diego and open up a carpet store.  So we began looking into selling the house.  We were talking to Realtors and looking at "comps" (comparable houses that had sold in the neighborhood), and were about to list the house for $74,000.00.  But then we found a new real estate agent who was energetic and did her research.  Since our lot was zoned R-3, that meant that apartments or condominiums could be built there, and the land was worth more than the house that was on the land.  So we listed it for $125,000.00.  It eventually sold for $115,000.00 and we carried back a second on the transaction of about $25,000.00.  Unfortunately, a year or so later the buyer became delinquent and the bank foreclosed.  We were not in a position to pick up the payments to the loan so we lost the second.  But we were fortunate that after all our loans were paid off, we had about $30,000.00 for a down payment on the house we purchased in Spring Valley (Rancho San Diego area) for $71,000.00.

We were thankful for the good fortune in selling the property for a price higher that we might have, but in hind sight, we probably would have made as much with out the expense, time, and effort of the remodel project.  But we enjoyed the experience and the feeling of accomplishment and creativity as we completed it.  The house was later torn down and a condominium project was built on the land.

Getting Educated

Since both Kathy and I had taken Child Development at Modesto Jr. College to get our Associate Degrees, I thought it would good career decision to open a Day Care center.  We looked around the various communities of San Diego County, and eventually and naively placed an offer to purchase a house in Lakeside, near an elementary school.  In my mind I worked through remodeling the house into a functioning Preschool.  But once we were in escrow, it became apparent that we were in no position to qualify for a loan even to purchase the house, let alone pay for the expenses to remodel. it  That experience ended poorly as we lost our $1000 earnest money and I ended up paying about a hundred dollars to an attorney in the ward to help get us off the hook.

Meanwhile I acquired a job at the LDS cannery / Bishop's Storehouse bundling newspapers which had been collected to be recycled.  I believe I was making $1.92 per hour.  Eventually I went back to work at Columbia Pest Control (where I had worked before my mission) where I was paid about $2.50 per hour to help tarp and sand bag houses for termite fumigation.  Howard Kent, a member of our ward while I was growing up as a teenager (he is about Melvin's age), was my supervisor.  It seemed that every day we had this conversation: "Dale, you need to find a job that will support a family.  You need to get a trade."  One day he suggested that I contact George Wimsatt, owner of Wimsatt Carpet in El Cajon, which handled the carpet installations for Sears.  Coincidentally, George Wimsatt had been my Scout Master during a part of my scouting years.  George Wimsatt told me to give my boss two weeks' notice, and then report to work.  I learned the trade of carpet installing.  I also learned to drive a forklift and work in his warehouse.  A part of the job involved taking out the old carpet.  And if it was a return-to-vendor, we would have to take out the carpet from the whole room in one piece, instead of cutting it in manageable strips like we would when we were gong to throw it away.  One day I strained my back as we removed a large living room of Axminster carpet.  I spent a month or so going in to physical therapy before work each day, or every other day.  That got me thinking about having a backup plan.  Kathy and I decided to go back to BYU and finish our Bachelor Degrees, in case I could no longer rely on using my muscle to earn a living.

At Brigham Young University I was able to work off all but the first month's rent by doing handyman work for the landlady.  I installed an asphalt (composition) shingle roof on one of her houses.  I re-tiled a shower, installed carpet and vinyl, etc.  I bought an old Ford van which I used to haul tools and things.

While in Provo I helped a local church member replace the carpet in one of the local chapels. This was back when the carpet was stretched over jute pad.  I acquired a carpet stretcher to be able to accomplish this project.

While finishing up my classes to get my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, I was encouraged by a classmate to pursue an MBA degree.  He pointed out that many of the classes taken for the undergraduate business degree applied toward the MBA, so it could be accomplished in one more year.  So I applied and decided to go to Cal State LA.

That last summer in Provo, I worked for Allman Carpets, a carpet shop in American Fork, UT., before moving to Inglewood, CA where we lived in a "triplex" between our landlady and another LDS family.  It was about 10 miles from where Uncle Melvin lived.  Uncle Melvin decided to join me in the MBA adventure.  We would take the bus to Cal State LA a couple evenings each week for night classes.  The Allmans had a son who owned a carpet shop in Torrence, about half an hour drive south of Inglewood.  I managed to get work there.  I also did carpet repairs and replacements for one of my professors who had some apartments.  So we had some income while working on my MBA.  Kathy was also taking some graduate classes at Cal State LA.

Becoming an Adult

After the Final Inspection on the Bobbie Lane house, there was still a lot of work to do, including landscaping.  The front yard was mostly planted in ivy.

When my Dad and Mom went to Mexico on their mission, I remained behind and lived in the new home for the summer while I finished up my last High School class, before heading to BYU in the fall.

After two years at Brigham Young University I went on a mission to Uruguay for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for two years.

I returned to BYU following my mission, fell in love with Kathryn McGhie, and we were married May 30, 1972.  Sometime between the wedding in Oakland, California and our reception in San Diego two weeks later I became a bit creative and practiced what I learned from the stone mason, and made a waterfall that spilled over into two fish ponds, in the back yard. 

I didn't have any employment lined up.  My Dad and Mom were back from their mission to Mexico, and had purchased a lot in Modesto, CA, and decided to build a house there, in a development that was in the process of being built.  He invited me and three of my brothers to help him begin building it that summer.  He had an old one bedroom rental in Modesto which he offered for us to live in.  Initially Kathy and I shared it with my Dad and my brother Maynard.  Kathy and I lived in the Living room while they shared the bedroom.  We had to pass through the kitchen and bedroom to get to the one bathroom.  It was an adventure. 

The new home he built in Modesto was much smaller that the Bobbie Lane house.  It was a single story home, three bedrooms, and two bath.  The work must have gone fairly smoothly, as I don't have a lot of memories of the various phases.  One humorous occurrence happened during the framing phase of the job.  After we had nailed together a wall, and raised it, somehow Kathy was asked to hold it up.  Meanwhile the rest of us got called way to consult on some other aspect of the framing.  A while later it occurred to us that Kathy was still holding up the wall, which had not been secured in place.  I got a picture of it.  We laugh about it to this day.

Another memory I have was how impatient we became whenever my mom would change her mind about things after we had framed it, so we would have to take it apart and re-do it.  Once again, we participated on all aspects of construction including framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc.  One day my Dad sent me to pick up some 20' pipes, which I tied up underneath the car.  On the way back to the job-site I got pulled over by a policeman because he said it was unsafe to drive that way.

At the end of that summer, Kathy and I drove back to Provo, expecting to get a place to rent, and continue with our college education.  But after we arrived, it soon became apparent that for married students to get housing, they had to have it arranged ahead of time.  So we returned to Modesto where we continued to live in the old converted milk house that my dad had offered to us.  We attended Modesto Jr. College, and I continued to work with my Dad on his new home.

My Dad had rented out the converted dairy milk house for decades, and it was in need of some repairs.  I did my first bathroom remodel job on that house.  I remember going to Montgomery Wards and picking out some ceramic tile, and I think they lent me a tile cutter, and I tiled around the bathtub.  I vaguely remember installing a piece of linoleum on the bathroom floor.  Termite damage was discovered in the bottom of the studs, so Dad and I chipped out the stucco, cut off the damaged section of the studs, and scabbed on a new piece of lumber.

Kathy and I both completed our Associates Degrees from Modesto Jr. College in the spring and moved to San Diego in search of a new career.  We lived in the Bobbie Lane Home for a year while we tried to get established.

Learning new skills

Once the Bobbie Lane house was framed, my Dad paired his sons with tradesmen he hired to work on the project.  My brother Don (about age 15) worked with the plumber while I (about age 14) worked with the HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) tradesman.  I don't remember what aspect of the job Maynard was assigned to, and I think by this time Melvin was already moved away from home.

I remember crawling under the house, hanging the ductwork from the floor joists, securing the ends together with hex head sheet metal screws, and then wrapping them with a thin fiberglass insulation wrap, which was stapled together to hold it in place.

As a part of the septic system, we built a septic tank out of concrete.  It consisted of two chambers, each having a concrete door at the top to allow for pumping out the sludge in the future.  The septic tank was connected to a leech field made up of trenches of gravel with a line of about 4" clay pipe that was gapped between, to allow the effluent liquid enter the rock and evaporate.

Another trade we were exposed to was working with the stone mason.

Working for the FBI, my Dad spent a lot of time in Mexico.  He found a good deal on some stone for his fireplaces and planters, and arranged to have it delivered.  He was unaware that the truck driver would show up on a Sunday morning.  It was very out of character for my dad to expect us to work on Sunday.  But I remember that one Sunday morning he had us put on our work clothes and go help him unload that truck load of stone.   There were lots of rocks on that truck!

Each of us took turns tending the stone mason.  We had to learn to mix the mortar to a consistence of his liking.  This also entailed accurately measuring the sand, plastic cement, lamp black and water into a cement mixer.  We then were tasked with keeping his mortar board loaded with mortar. It was interesting to watch him work.  Like an artist he carefully chose each rock with an eye to where it would look and fit best.  Then after giving the mortar just the right amount of time to firm up, he would clean out the joints between the rocks with a whisk broom.
When it came time to do the electrical, we all pitched in to pull the romex wires between the outlet and switch boxes and the electrical panel.  I remember spending what seemed like hours connecting the neutral and ground wires to the ground bar, and the black and red wires to the circuit breakers.

I think we tried to get involved in the stucco part of the project, but those hod buckets (Definition of HOD 1: a tray or trough that has a pole handle and that is borne on the shoulder for carrying loads (as of mortar or brick)) were just too heavy for me to carry up a ladder without spilling it all over the place.  This was back when they didn't use a pump to spray the scratch and brown coats onto the walls, but rather had to use a hod carrier to place the plaster mixture on a mortar board from which the plasterers picked it up and toweled it onto the walls.  It looked like a lot of hard work, but the house seemed much more complete after the stucco wire was covered with stucco.

My Dad hired a crew to hot mop the roofing.  He also hired a painter to paint the interior, and a flooring contractor to install the linoleum flooring and carpet.  He had the cabinets built and installed by a cabinet professional.  Of course we were there to watch them work, so it was quite educational.  When Mom and Dad finished building this new home, Don and I were finishing our last year of high school and getting ready to head off to college.  My Dad was called to be Mission President of the West Mexico Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hermosillo, Mexico.  My two younger sisters went to Mexico with them.  I made a mental note to myself that their "Dream Home" was built too late for them to enjoy with all their children at home.  When they returned from their mission four years later, they only had my youngest sister living with them in that huge house.  But years later they did enjoy the largeness of the home when their large posterity came to visit!  Before they sold the home on Bobbie Lane they had 6 children with their 6 spouses and 64 grand children, and perhaps 20 great grand children. (When he passed away in August 2011, my Dad had 64 grandchildren and 177 great grandchildren.)

Bobbie Lane House

With the foundation in, we turned our attention to framing the house.  This entailed putting on sill plates which were bolted down with the anchor bolts.  And since it was a crawl-space construction, we had to put in floor joists, which were supported on piers and posts.  Fortunately the man in the house next to where we were building was a contractor and offered to lend my Dad a Skil Saw, otherwise I am certain he would have had us cutting all the lumber with a handsaw.

I don't remember a whole lot about the framing process other than that my brother reminds me when the inspector came out for the framing inspection he would not pass it off because we had nailed down the plywood parallel to the joists instead of perpendicular to the joists.  My Dad's solution to this setback was to put down another layer of plywood running in the correct direction.  Of course we hand nailed all the plywood with hammers (there were no pneumatic nail guns back then.  We did all the framing with hammer and nail.)  But it was a lot easier than if we would have had to pull out all the nails (with a Cat's Paw) in the thousands of square feet of plywood already down, then quarter turn each sheet and re-nail it.

Eventually the framing was complete when we finished nailing down the plywood for the roof.  We would soon be introduced to new skills besides swinging a hammer.

Our New Home

Our New Home

On New Years Eve 2013 my wife and I spent the night in our new home, which was many years in the making.

I have been around construction much of my life.  My earliest memory is of having breakfast on a stack of button board when I was three years old.  My dad was in the process of having a home built, and he was working along with the contractor so he could save on construction costs and build a larger home that would include an additional family room, bedroom, and bathroom.

When I was about 11 years old my parents decided that our family of two parents and six children had out grown that four bedroom / two bathroom home.  They had an architect friend who designed for them a very spacious house to build.  It consisted of a very large living room, large family room, spacious kitchen, four over sized bedrooms (compared to today's standards) in addition to a massive master bedroom suite.  There was a generous game room in what could be called a basement, but in California we don't have basements.  When I was 12 we began construction.  My dad believed in teaching his children to work, so he had us on the project working alongside him and other tradesmen as the endeavor progressed.

It was a major undertaking, especially since my dad was working a full time job as an FBI agent.  We worked on the house evenings and Saturdays.  Being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, working Sundays was taboo.  But my dad had nothing against working late into the evenings with the aid of work lights.

My first memories of what became know as the "Bobbie Lane" house was helping my dad survey the land.  He would look through a transit and have us take turns holding a pole with a measuring stick attached.  By recording the readings he created a topographical map of the lot, which was essential in laying out the placement of the house, driveway, septic system, etc.  The next step I remember was doing percolation tests for the design of the septic system.  Then came the Bulldozer.  I remember being amazed to learn that the operator made $60 per hour.  That was one dollar per minute!  To a 12 year old in 1962 that seemed like an awesome income.  The Caterpillar operator cut in a driveway, then cut in a pad near the top of the lot for the actual building site.  There was an amazing view from there all the way out to the Coronado peninsula.

After the grading was complete, footings were dug with a backhoe.  (I don't think my Dad operated it).  I remember helping tie the forms together so they would not spread when filled with concrete.  The concrete walls at the back of the house were quite tall, perhaps 8 feet in areas.  When the forms were in place, a crew of perhaps 6 or more men came and did the concrete work.  Our job was to insert the foundation bolts in place.  I remember how difficult that task became when the concrete began setting up.  After the foundation was in place, the actual framing could begin.