Canadas at Home: House in 1997

Our New Home in Laurinburg

May: Now that Mark has a permanent job teaching English at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, we finally can buy a house. We chose to settle down in Laurinburg, a charming town of about 33,000 people about a half-hour west of Pembroke. In an old, well-kept neighborhood there, we found a very reasonably priced house with many of the features we had hoped to find in our first home: hardwood floors, fireplace, a large living room, three bedrooms and a den, and a large yard with three magnolia trees.

Despite all of these charms, the house needed some cosmetic work. Determined to make it as attractive as possible between our closing date on April 10 and our open house on May 10, the day before my graduation, we set to work and managed to finish the projects below, with some generous and marvelous assistance from Jamey Henderson and Lisa's parents, Jerry and Marganelle Henry. Jamey, who took one of my writing courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke this spring and has become a great friend to both of us, not only helped us move into the house, but helped me lay the front walk, rake the yard, and clean the house and carport. Lisa's dad, Jerry Henry, helped me install a ceiling fan, install a lamp in the kitchen, and repair an outlet. He also helped Lisa refinish a screen door and ran numerous errands. Lisa's mom, Marganelle Henry, must have set some kind of record when she sewed a gorgeous slip cover and upholstered a chair in just three days.

Living Room

Marganelle and Lisa sewed a slip cover for one of our couches.
Marganelle reupholstered a chair.
Lisa hung pictures and curtains.
Mark wired speakers from the armoir in the garden room.
Lisa and Mark organized the bookshelves.
Jamey and Mark swept and set up the furniture.

Master Bedroom

Lisa painted the walls light peach.
Lisa and Mark repaired the headboard on the bed.
Lisa refinished an exposed area of the hardwood floor.
Lisa set up the furniture.

Guest Bedroom

Lisa set up the furniture.
Mark organized the closet.

Den

Mark set up the furniture and computer.
Mark organized the closet.

Kitchen

Lisa put away the dishes and food.
Jerry and Mark installed a lamp in the ceiling.

Utility Room

Mark put away tools and cleaning supplies.
Lisa set up the washer.

Garden Room

Lisa and Mark painted the dark paneling white, painted the trim yellow, and added a border.
Lisa and Mark laid carpet.
Lisa and Mark set up the furniture.
Jerry and Mark installed a ceiling fan.
Jerry and Mark repaired an outlet.

Carport and Shed

Mark cleaned the shed.
Mark removed damaged shelves from the shed.
Mark installed hooks for bicycles.
Jamey and Mark swept and hosed down the carport.

Yard

Lisa trimmed trees.
Lisa and Mark tore down an ugly presswood doghouse the previous owner had left.
Mark mowed and dethatched the grass.
Lisa and Mark laid landscape timber along the sides of the driveway.
Jamey, Mark, and Lisa constructed a pine-bark walkway to the front door
Lisa and Mark planted flowers around the house and trees.
Mark placed mulch around the trees and flower beds.

Although exhausting, all this painting, cleaning, installing, repairing, organizing, mowing, raking, and planting rewarded us with a home that we were proud to display during our open house. Equally rewarding are the memories we have of family and friends working together for our benefit. In particular, I remember Friday afternoon, the day before the open house, when Marganelle was busy in the living room reupholstering a chair, Lisa was hanging pictures and wallpaper border, Jerry was sanding a screen door and running errands, and Jamey and I were laying the front walk and raking the yard. Even at the time, when I was busy and tired and a little frantic, I realized that I was experiencing something special.

Phase 2

Summer: After a few weeks of recovery, we have returned to working on our new house. Lisa bought an old sideboard for our dining room, and we worked together to remove the ugly green paint someone had put on it and then to refinish it. We also installed a cabinet in the bathroom and a wall mirror in the bedroom, repaired a screen door, refinished a chair, and hung border in the bedroom. Outside, we installed an electrical outlet and a security light in the carport, transplanted some grass in a bare spot in the yard, and planted a small garden. We also have been busy trimming trees, pulling weeds, picking up sticks, fertilizing and mowing the lawn, and generally trying to improve a lot that--although inherently attractive--needed some care after years of neglect. Nature has chipped in with some rain, too, and we now have a greener and tamer yard.

Finally, we proudly hung a quilt that my mom made for me as a graduation gift. In addition to the words "Mark Canada, Ph.D., U.N.C. 1997," she stitched 22 large stars and 110 smaller ones, which she explained in this note: "I believe a handmade gift is a special gift of love. So this is my gift of love to you. It has twenty-two large stars for all the years you went to school (including kindergarten). It has one hundred ten small stars for you always give a hundred ten percent to anything you do. I hope you know how proud I am of you Mark, but even more I hope you know how much I love you." As I told my mom back when she gave it to me in May, her handmade quilt is the most wonderful material gift I have ever received, and I will treasure it forever.

Phase 3

Fall 1997: When we moved into this house in April, I had done some woodworking, and Lisa had some experience sewing and refinishing furniture. Over the next several months, we found ourselves in a crash course in home repair, and this fall brought the final exam.

First, we completely renovated the living room and dining room, patching cracks in the plaster, painting the walls a pale yellow, repairing and repainting the ceiling and inlaid bookshelves, and, in our crowning achievement, putting up crown molding in both rooms. We realized what a challenge we had undertaken when we spent an entire afternoon toiling on the woodwork and finished only half of the first of three stages of the molding. In addition to requiring a lot of time, installing the molding was an intellectual challenge. Staring at the corners, trying to figure the angle at which to cut the pieces that themselves would hang at an angle, I know how my students feel when I try to explain the fine points of punctuation or paragraph organization. After about three weeks of working on the room off and on, we finished it with good result. The rooms are cheery and sun-filled, open and comfortable for us and our guests.

Our second large project of the season was installing new countertops in the kitchen, where the decrepit orange-red laminate that had offended me from the start had finally worn down Lisa's positive outlook. Although not in the same league as the crown molding, these countertops posed their own set of difficulties. For one thing, they crack easily, and we spent at least half of our time carefully positioning them between a workbench and a table, taping them, and cutting them with a power saw. Because the back splashes curved around the molding on the window sills, we also had to make some of the cuts by hand with a coping saw. Finally, attaching the laminate to the countertop was a little nerve-racking because the contact cement allowed no repositioning; crooked once is crooked to stay. We finished the job without any serious problems in about five days, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Over the past several months, we also worked on an assortment of smaller projects all over the house. In the kitchen, for example, we installed a new faucet and sink. Lisa sewed some curtains and hung them in the living room and dining room, where I installed a chandelier and dimmer switch.

We renovated our extra bedroom a little by installing some bookshelves, hanging curtains and pictures, and moving in the futon and desk from elsewhere in the house so that now the room serves as a cozy den and guest room.

Finally, in the nursery, we installed more shelves, arranged the furniture, and assembled our new crib, a gift from my parents. Now, we're ready to put the home projects on hold for a while and devote our free time to an even bigger project, who is scheduled to arrive in January.