El Rancho del Corazón
Part II: Work
12 Hey, Kids!
OVER THE PAST TWO MONTHS, the study portion of my room had been taken over by home planning. Rhiannon still had a drafting table set up and many of our original sketches and drawings of the property in Bloomington were stacked or rolled up around it. Courtney’s computer occupied a long folding table with another half dozen folding chairs set around it for our study sessions. My Mac was on my desk along with its printer. In the corner, my file cabinet was now more than half filled with Heaven’s photos and magazines. I’d been collecting them for years and got a new package from Jessica at least once a month. My microscope and chemistry set occupied spaces on the bookshelves, while stacks of books sat on the floor.
I opened a spreadsheet on my computer and started entering some of the numbers Ron had given me. Like Hannah’s original lighting bid, these numbers were also depressing. I kept fussing with the numbers and studying the drawings of the barn.
“What are you working on, love?” Elaine asked me Thursday evening. The day had been busy with Hannah’s birthday, her parents visiting, and then Sam, Jen, and Court all insisting on taking Hannah out for a girl’s night. I was a little relieved. I needed time to work on this.
“Um… Trying to figure out a place for us to live this fall,” I muttered. We had a few photographs of the barn that Jennifer had taken on our second visit. I pushed them around and circled an area on the plan.
“What’s that?”
“I think it’s the kitchen. It would be unusual, but would give us great camera angles.”
“Would it still function well as a kitchen? That’s the problem with so many theater and movie settings. They look pretty, but they don’t function well.”
“I’m having a little trouble placing the appliances so they don’t block anything,” I answered. Actually, talking about this with someone was helping me visualize it.
“How about if you had two walls, so it was a corner set, rather than just one wall with you in front of it? I know one wall and a bar was the concept using what you had to work with in the house, but as long as you are designing from scratch, you should just make it what you want.” I looked up at Elaine. I’d been looking at this as a kitchen where I needed to be filmed. She was looking at it as a theater set with an audience.
“Wouldn’t that kind of box us into a corner?” I asked.
“Why do you care about putting it in a corner? It’s a big room. It would actually help to have a backstage area. That way you wouldn’t have to integrate your pantry and all your cupboards. You could even have an assistant working backstage while you are out front. You know, so things can be prepped without cluttering up the set,” she quickly drew out a soft pencil outline of what it would look like. It was interesting.
“Wow! That could really work. We’d actually have room for a live audience if we wanted. I wish I could figure out living quarters the same way.”
“Why not. We have two big open floors. How big is the barn?”
“It’s eighty feet long by forty-eight wide.”
“Good heavens! I knew it was big, but… That’s over 3,800 square feet on each floor! No wonder your estimates are so high. It’s a great space, but you don’t have to convert the whole thing. Even if we had the whole lower level devoted to a single open studio, we’d only need about a third of the loft for a bedroom,” Elaine said. “And bathrooms.”
“Elaine, my love, this could work. I want to go down this weekend and take accurate measurements and talk to Rhiannon and our whole clan.”
“Hey kids, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s put on a show. My dad’s got a barn we could use!” she laughed.
Saturday, we created another caravan back to Bloomington. Sora and Whitney were moving down for the rest of the summer. They’d be housed on campus during their basketball and gymnastics camps. Hannah was impatient to visit the IU media center where they taught students television production. Elaine was getting a huge kick out of the idea of designing a theater. And we all wanted to celebrate Casa del Agua and Casa de la Tierra moving into their new home. Even most of the younger kids wanted to come along for the weekend. We finally decided that enough were coming back after the weekend that we could have enough cars and tents for what Sandy had called a Camporee. I wondered how that crazy hippie chick was doing. I’d barely had a chance to talk to her during the load-in week, even though she was around all the time.
Things had really changed at the ranch. The front porches were on the bunkhouse and they looked really cool. I could hear hammers in back and was surprised that Ron had a crew working on Saturday. We headed directly for the barn and started unloading our tents.
“Hey! You kids are on private property! No trespassing,” a grumpy woman’s voice yelled at us. We turned around and saw Doreen coming toward us. We all started laughing and she ran to us and jumped into my arms. “Our house is so beautiful! Thank you! Thank you all for letting us have a home here!”
Rhiannon came out the front door and Brenda and Louise came from the other front door. They were all wearing cut-off jeans and little tops. They looked like some oversexed version of the real McCoys. There were hugs all around.
“Where are Carl and Doug?” I asked.
“What’s all the noise?” Doug yelled as he and Carl came out from behind the house. “Oh, cheez it! It’s the landlord!”
He and Carl doubled over laughing then came sauntering over to meet us. They got mobbed by half a dozen girls who decided to show them who was landlord. I finally managed to shake their hands and pull them into a hug myself.
“How did Ron get a crew here to work on your deck on Saturday?” I asked.
“Easy,” Carl said. “He told us he’d pay us as crew to do it on Monday or we could have a free deck by doing the work over the weekend. We’ve got it almost finished.”
“You’re kidding! Let’s see!”
We walked around the back and Doug started explaining what was happening.
“They poured the piers last Monday when they came out to do the porches. Then Thursday they had a couple guys set the posts for the deck and on Friday they helped us hang the joists. Ron was complimentary and told us next we could start building your house. We’ve been working out here in the hot sun and have had these sexy ladies bringing us cold drinks and mopping our brows.”
“Is that safe?”
“We put all power tools down whenever a woman steps out the door,” Carl laughed.
With Casa del La Tierra and Casa del Agua already in their new homes, the rest of us moved into Sora’s trailer and various tents. Doug invited George and Theresa to occupy the extra two bedrooms in their duplex and Carl did the same with the fearsome foursome. Lionel and Sugar came out and invited Rich and Susan to join them in their apartment. Rich was pretty excited, but Susan declined and said she was staying in the girls’ tent. That influenced Theresa to do the same.
“So what’s your big idea, Patrón?” Rhiannon asked as we headed to the barn. The whole clan joined us.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “Our house burned down and the insurance company is being a bunch of dicks about it. That means we don’t have any place to live this fall. I haven’t mentioned this and I’m really sorry, Hannah. We don’t have a kitchen to film in this fall.” She nodded her head and I saw her eyes tearing up. “But we have a barn!” I shouted. The place was so big it didn’t even echo. “Ron gave me a ridiculously high estimate about how much it would cost to renovate it into a house. It was almost as much as just building a new house will be. He also said that we could reduce the cost by doing some of the work ourselves. I’ve been working on some designs and spreadsheets that indicate we might actually be able to do it for even less and Elaine has shown me part of how.”
“What do we have to do, Patrón?” Josh said. “Whatever it is, I’m in.”
“Cousin, you’ve got a job and won’t even be living here. It’s hardly fair…”
“Are you throwing me out of the casa?” he demanded.
“Whoa! No!”
“You told us that this would be our home, too. As far as I’m concerned, that means I’m going to do whatever is necessary to help make it work,” he said.
“Whatever is necessary,” Cassie repeated. Several others repeated the phrase. I looked at Hannah and could see a tear on her cheek but a smile on her face.
“Then here is what I think we could do. We’ll need some of Rhiannon’s help with the designs and pretty much anybody who will help. And I still have to come up with some money. We start by pouring a cement slab for a floor and sealing up the interior.”
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