Chapter 4: It's a Line Drive

This was the chance of a lifetime and it had fallen into my lap like a lightning-struck duck. (causing much confusion and smelling up the place from singed feathers?) I needed to put paid to my old life so that I could concentrate on what I needed to do in the here-and-now. I called my (ex) boss and told him what had hit me. He called me a lucky bastard and asked for my phone and keys. I shipped them back via Fed Ex. This spawned my next project. I needed a new phone. I bought a dead-stupid cell phone. It wasn't a Blackberry. It wasn't an Iphone. It wasn't an Android. It had caller-ID and a large keypad. Next I called my Illinois apartment's landlord and opened negotiations to break my contract for a minimum fee.

I ordered a shipping container to be dropped off at the apartment complex. For five hundred bucks the maintenance guys would strip the place for me and pack the goods. When they called to inform me that they were finished I'd call a shipping agent to have the container sealed and trucked to me. The contents of the chest freezer and refrigerator would be up for grabs. Someone was going to get a lot of frozen meat out of the deal. I explicitly described where my firearms were kept and informed them that they were kept loaded.

I began making notes about my estate-to-be.

Once the road was completed I wanted a brick barn erected to hold not only the shipping container but the snow removal equipment that I'd need, a stack of firewood, a generator and a large LP gas tank as well. The old building materials would have to be cleared out from around the job site, foundations had to be dug and the foundation slabs poured. Depending on what the architect and his or her pet mechanical engineer said, I was thinking about a one hundred and thirty foot long by fifty foot wide slab on the order of one foot thick for the house, and a thirty foot by sixty foot slab for the barn. The pads would have to be suitably reinforced by welded re-bar grids.

Since pre-stressed hollow-core concrete slabs are made of concrete (obviously), and concrete wicks water like crazy, the poured slab and everything making up the shell would have to be meticulously water-proofed to prevent wicking. Saturated concrete disintegrates when frozen and the local climate insured many, many freezing nights come winter.

Despite the use of forced air heating and cooling I'd insist on two fireplaces: one small working fireplace equipped with a crane and roaster, positioned at the edge of the kitchen and one centered within the living room wall. It was to be larger and designed for light, heat and atmosphere.

I would insist on wooden flooring, large over-stuffed leather chairs and couches, carpets defining areas of interest and wall-length book shelves. I wished the furniture style to be dark mission oak.

The design of my new home was approached as a functional process. I defined tasks that I would be confronted with on a day-to-day basis. Then I specified what I would require to either perform those tasks or to present a view or character that I desired.

I planned for an office, three bedrooms, one suite with its own sitting room and bathroom, another huge bathroom nearest the 'master' bedroom, a deep two-plus-car garage near the kitchen and a solarium or conservatory at the other end of the house. The solarium was to have its own heater to enable me to run a separate heating zone efficiently. I specified that a flat cobblestone patio was to be laid between the kitchen and the brick barn, edged by evergreens and thorn hedges. Perhaps, in time, I'd have walls built to further define the edges of the space. I definitely planned on a barbecue area outside the kitchen. I hoped to reserve enough room for four or five face-cords of wood in the brick barn. A wheeled cart would do an admirable job of bringing in both the firewood and groceries.