My Childhood: Adding Onto The House

Since we’d moved into our house on Stoddard, Belinda and I had shared a bedroom. It was the largest room in the house, stretching left from the living room to the far left side of the house. My parents had built a wall between our rooms, but I still had to walk through Belinda’s room to get to mine.

My parents bedroom was small. It was much too small for two fully-grown adults and all their bedroom furniture, as well as their clothes, jewelry, and other miscellaneous knickknacks and belongings.

Eventually my parents decided to add two additional rooms to our house. They wanted an additional bedroom and a family room. The yard had plenty of extra room to accommodate the additional structure, and they were able to get a home improvement loan to cover the costs.

They called in a contractor, who met with them several times to determine their requirements. He drew up some blueprints, which they approved. Since money was tight, they planned to do the addition as a "fixer-upper", meaning the contractor would pour the slab, put up the walls and finish the roof. It would be up to my parents to complete the inside of the rooms by adding paneling, carpeting and other interior finishing.

A few weeks after the plans were approved, the contractors arrived. First, they tore down the tree which contained my tree house. I must admit that I shed a couple of tears (carefully hidden from anyone) when that wonderful old tree was cut down. After that, they prepared the ground for the pouring of the foundation, which was a simple concrete slab.

After the slab was poured and allowed to harden, they built the walls, which were put together flat on the ground and raised into position when finished. The walls were fastened to the slab with a special nail propelled into the concrete with a bullet. I remember finding the empty cartridges from these bullets all over the floor.

When the walls were complete, they added plumbing, electrical outlets and insulation. Then they finished the outside by adding stucco to chicken wire which had been stapled to the walls. Finally, the roof was raised, and tar was poured over it all to make it waterproof.

Once the contractors were finished, my parents began their job. They purchased a large amount of paneling, and nailed it to the studs of the walls. Then they got some indoor-outdoor carpeting, which they laid down on the bar concrete floors themselves.

Although they never admitted it, I got the distinct impression that my parents were very disappointed with the results of this expansion. The extra rooms were very handy but they looked like an afterthought. They didn’t fit in well with the rest of the house, and the home-made paneling and carpeting looked and felt amateurish. To top if all off, the roof leaked whenever it rained.

The plan above shows the basic plan of our house and yard once the add-on was complete. My parents moved into one of the rooms of the add-on, Belinda moved into their old bedroom, and I stayed where I was. I expanded my domain into the entire room, and soon had the whole thing filled with my possessions.

This was the first time in our lives that Belinda and myself each had our own rooms. It was the first time that either of us had any real privacy, and we soon came to love our newfound freedoms. In a short time, Belinda filled her room with hamster cages, scientific equipment and lots of books.

I acquired a bookcase, which I soon had filled with dozens of military and science fiction books and magazines. I also got a table, which later became the home of my model railroading setup. This layout served a dual purpose, in that I also used it to stage tremendous battles using miniature tanks and soldiers.

That room remained mine until we moved to Lake Arrowhead a few years later. Although I always had my own room from that point onward, that first bedroom was by far the better than the one I acquired after our move. I spent a lot of time in that bedroom on Stoddard, playing with my friends, reading and growing up. It was a place that was uniquely mine in a house largely decorated and built to suit my parents needs and desires.