1st Floor, 1st Unit

Sometime in August of 2004, we started work in the 1st unit downstairs in the rental apartment. This is the same home improvement project that I was working on. It is the continuation of the house renovation but we finished the two-door units on the second floor level first. Then by late December of that year, my late mom was diagnosed with the Big C. So all resources was used to try to take care of her. As the saying goes "When it comes to love, you don't count the cost". Since she was already on the 4th stage of her sickness when she was diagnosed, she still wanted to have an operation because her will to live was very strong. She wanted to show us her children that if the time comes to make a big decision, that we should be courageous to face the problem and not hide or run away from it. She was a strong woman and my family was a matriarchal one. After 6 months of supposed recovery, she passed away. I still miss her very much up to this time, may God rest her soul. I and my siblings were with her all the way up to the very end of her long sickness. Knowing that we did the best we could for her and that we loved her the best we knew how, so there is no regrets. Except that sometimes, if it were only possible to buy a life and bring her back, I would but of course this is just me and my thoughts.

Since it is a practice in my culture to stop all on-going work in the construction of the house when there is a death in the family, so we did just that and did not do anything about it until after the prescribed 1 year of mourning period was over. It took me much longer than that to get over my loss. I didn't have the drive to finish the project anymore. Then in August 2006, we took up where we left off with the work. Then we had another set-back in 2007 and had to stop work in the construction project again. You see, my older brother lost his job at that time. I had to prioritize helping out his family and put the children in school. Then once again, August of 2008, we picked up the pieces from where we left off and started with the construction of the unit. Finally in 2009, we finished the 1st unit downstairs. The 1st unit in the 1st floor or ground floor level has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and living room. It is now presently tenanted by a small family, just a couple and their 2 young children who are still in grade school. These tenants actually had to rent out a next door neighbor's house for three months while waiting for us to finish the unit. Now, they made the unit their new home.

Dismantling the Old Family House

This is a picture of my late mother who worked so hard to make this old house a home for all of us while we were all growing up.

In August of 2001, I started my long-time dream of renovating the old family house which is located some 150 meters away from my own house in this same village. I designed to maximize the space in the small lot area around the family house and sketched the drawings then showed this to my carpenter who is also my friend to check on the feasibility of my project. My carpenter is called Bagyan by everyone and he also lives in this same neighborhood. He pointed out some things that I had missed out so I had to re-do and change my drawings several times. After I made my drawings to scale, then we had to check and double check my drawings against the actual space in the lot area. I wanted a three-storey building with a 2-door unit apartment on each floor. Each unit will have two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room/dining and a kitchenette. You see, houses around this area near the family house are very close to each other which is why I had to incorporate a small veranda at the back for drying clothes. My idea is to finish the second floor units first and have this rented out then work on the first floor and lastly on the third floor. When everything was done, he gave me a list of his calculations and I set out to do the dirty work of canvassing for the cost of materials. Once I got that done, then I had to wait for him to finish his prior work for 4 months before he was finally free to work on my project.  So the saga of renovating the old family house began.

 

 My late mom telling stories to my eldest nephew Jason on how they built the old family house from scratch after the end of WW11.

My two nephews Jasper and Jason goofing off in the old bathroom. They were pretty young at that time but they were very enthusiastic helpers.

Jasper and Jason wanted more pics taken of them while goofing off.  

This used to be the kitchen and dining area. Just above the blue shellane tank in the corner is a fire-wood-stove that we use for long-cooking food using fire wood.

Work started in the basement where they dug up the holes for the concrete posts. They did not actually take off all the beams on the second floor because they served as scaffolding materials while they made the form for the concrete posts.

The concrete posts were done on the first floor and they had to come up on the second floor, that's when they had to take off part of the floor wood.

More wood scaffold on the outside of the house. Just below the stone rip-rap on the right lower corner is the end of the property. This is just the beginning of a long journey.

They are now dismantling the roof of the old house.

On the left side at the top corner is the chimney and these two boys in the picture are dismantling the tin roof.

The Old Family House

When I took the optional retirement from the company 10 years ago, I decided to do a major home improvement project. That is, to renovate the old family house that my beloved parents built some 14 years after the end of WW 2. In those days, my parents who were both day laborers were struggling very hard to provide food for the table and to put us children to school, meaning me and my other siblings. That was their top priority, the house was secondary for as long as we have a roof over our head. My siblings and I grew up in this old family house so there were a lot of memories in this old house. Some were bad as that is part of a dysfunctional  family but mostly good in spite of our being dirt poor. When I started the project around the last days of August in 2001, I knew that I didn't have enough money to finish my project but I went ahead with it anyway. I drew my inspiration from a certain part of the Bible that said "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me..." and "God will provide for our needs....". So armed with these positive outlook in life, I began the saga of renovating the old family house. Houses were built very closely with each other around this neighborhood which is why it's difficult to take a good shot of everything. Here are some pics of the old house anyway.

That's my second nephew Jasper 10 years ago cleaning the footpath. On the left side was my late mom's garden and on the right side was the old house.

That's Jason, my eldest nephew cleaning up my late mom's garden. The house behind the garden belongs to another neighbor.

That's my sister-in-law Emy with her children cleaning up the garden near the house so we can have some space for the new materials.

Ooops! Jasper slacking on the job. He got tired from helping out with the cleaning of the garden.

This is the taken from the footpath and looking down to the end of the stairs. Notice the neighbor's house closeby just behind the children. Jason, my eldest nephew and Jasper the second nephew, Jessica the only girl and Jim, my third nephew. John the youngest was still a baby then so he wasn't in this picture.

 This is a shot of the right side of the house at the end of the footpath. Behind Jim is a door that leads to the first floor downstairs which was being rented out to a family friend. It was a small two-storey house with hollow blocks on the bottom and corrugated tin on the second floor.

A view of the left side of the house near the stairs with my nephew Jim directing traffic at the bottom of the stairs.

Jason and Jessica at the entrance to the second floor which is near the top of the stairs or footpath.

A shot of the tin roof with Jason on the left corner but it was taken on a very sunny day in August.

The roof with my nephew Jim peeking over the concrete fence.