Love is Building a House Together: A Tribute to My Parents, Part III

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #56

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Working on the front yard landscaping on Minta Lane

(apparently my dad and I were acting as supervisors)

In my last two posts (Part I and Part II), I have written about my family building our house together from 1979-1981. In March of 1981, we finally demolished the old house that was at the front of the property, which meant there was a lot of landscaping to do both in front and back of the new house. One of the first projects was putting in a new driveway, which you can see in the photo above. 

I remember at one point my dad called the driveway “Myrtle Drive” after his Great Aunt Myrtle because he had received a small inheritance ($1,000) that helped to pay for the driveway. My brothers and I also drew our names and ages into the driveway: Tonya - 14; Cam - 11; and Andy - 7. I thought I had a picture of that, but I cannot find one. The driveway was more narrow at the front, which made it rather difficult to back out of correctly. I know that was definitely true for me when I was learning to drive, which happened soon after we moved in – and I may have run over my mom’s flowers a couple time. Oops!

You can see in the photo above that my parents brought in some large rocks to help set apart areas for plants, trees, and shrubs. They also moved around a lot of dirt in the yard, creating a mound at the front that created a natural barrier between the house and the rather busy street. Minta Lane no longer has nearly as much traffic as it used to back then because the city of Antioch eventually made “G Street” go all the way through (people used to have to cut through on Minta Lane), and the city also removed the G Street exit ramp from Highway 4.

Here is my mom, “playing in the dirt,”

as she works on landscaping the front yard.

My dad drew up plans for the front yard that specified heights for the soil, as well as the various flowers and trees they would plant. In the drawing below, he lists the following trees: “Old” Lemon, Granny Smith Apple, Gravenstein Apple, Eureka Lemon, Kumquat, Dwarf Orange, Washington Navel Orange, Walnut, and Grapefruit. They got a lot of fruit from those trees, but eventually some died, and others they chose to take out.

My parents’ plan for the front yard involved many plants, shrubs, and trees.

The drawing also lists some of the flowers and shrubs they would plant: Raphiolepsis, Ceanothus, Euryops, Manzanita, Creeping Rosemary, Leptospermum, Easter Broom, Dwarf Juniper, and Coyote Brush. My mom would always amaze me with how many types of plants she could name, whereas I am rather helpless with all but the most common names (rose, daisy, geranium, carnation, lily – those I remember!).

In looking up the names of the plants listed above so I would know what they look like, one description kept popping up: fuss-free. My parents were looking to create a drought-tolerant, long-lasting, fuss-free, yet beautiful front yard. Eventually, they added a lot of bulbs and rhizomes to the mix – daffodils, pink ladies, Dutch irises, purple irises, Easter lilies, and more. Mike and I got bulbs from them on several occasions in an effort to add more color to our own yard in the spring – some grew, but never like they did in my parents’ yard.

Eventually, my parents’ front yard would blaze with color from its many flowers, trees, shrubs, and potted plants, becoming something of a “show stopper” in the spring with its myriad blooms. In the photo below, you can my mom standing in the front yard, with lots of orange California poppies, yellow Calendula, and white Easter lilies blooming around her. You can also see the old lemon tree on the right. Mike and I have enjoyed many lemons from that tree, and it was still producing when my parents sold the house. In more recent years, the front yard has served as a wonderful place for the family to take Easter photos after our egg hunt in the back yard.

My mom stands here in the front yard, which is ablaze with flowers.

In this photo, a “tree stand” holds some of my mom’s potted flowers.

This later view of the front yard features one of my parents’ many pelican statues.

Aaron and Anna stand with my mom under the old lemon tree on Easter (as you can tell by Anna’s bunny ears); this tree produced a lot of lemons, and they were BIG!

The backyard took on many iterations over the years, so it’s hard to describe it accurately in a single description. It was always changing, depending on my parents’ desires and needs. At one point in the early years, it served as a “motocross course” for my brothers with their dirt bikes! They eventually extended their “course” to include the hill behind our house (back when no houses were there), passing through a gate my dad created, until a neighbor complained about the noise.

Andy and Cam on their dirt bikes in the backyard

It also featured swings of varying styles over the years, including ropes, boards, and buckets (my son Aaron especially liked the bucket swing when he was little), as well as a number of forts, both on the ground and in the trees. Its most recent swing was a 3-4 seater, meant more for slow swinging and relaxing, situated in a peaceful section of the yard sheltered by a tree and surrounded by statues of Mary, Buddha, and St. Francis. Of course, this swing was not always used properly, as you can see in the photos of my dad and daughter Anna below.

Andy (age 6 or 7) jumping from a swing in the backyard;

you can see the woodpile in the background

Cam sitting high up in the tree after climbing up a “tree ladder”

Cam sitting in one of his tree forts

My dad and daughter Anna (age 6) hanging from the swing

(“Poppy” always kept the kids entertained!)

Since a primary goal of my parents, though, was to be as self-sufficient as possible, the back yard was primarily used for a garden and lots of fruit and nut trees that could provide food for us to eat. They had an extensive vegetable garden, growing (from what I recall) tomatoes, string beans, fava beans, snow peas, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, beets, turnips, garlic, onions, peppers, lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, corn (my favorite), and ... I'm sure I'm forgetting something. It was a lot to maintain – the garden definitely kept them busy, but I'll be talking more about that in Part IV.

Below, you can see my parents standing in the backyard, next to one of their flower beds and on one of the paths my dad laid out using railroad ties. You can also see the brick patio my parents created outside the sliding glass door, which leads inside to the dining room. In this photo, my dad is holding a pitchfork. He said he was trying to replicate, in his own way, the American Gothic painting below.

Here my parents stand in the backyard, with my dad holding a pitchfork and wearing a shirt with a sun that says, “The safe nuclear reactor.”

“American Gothic,” by Grant Wood, is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.

As explained on Wikipedia: “American Gothic is a 1930 oil painting on beaverboard by the American Regionalist artist Grant Wood, depicting a Midwestern farmer and his wife or daughter standing in front of their Carpenter Gothic style home. It is one of the most famous American paintings of the 20th century and is frequently referenced in popular culture…. The figures were modeled after Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham and Byron McKeeby, the Wood family's dentist.”

Of course, when I see the name “Graham,” I think perhaps the model for the woman in the photo was actually some sort of relative to my father! I often have thought he would have made a great pioneer. 

My dad didn’t just pose with that pitchfork, though – he used it, along with lots of shovels, hoes, pickaxes, and rototillers, to prepare the soil for the garden he and my mom would be planting. Part of that involved moving lots of dirt from the front to the backyard, which sloped down toward the hill behind it. He brought in railroad ties to put against the old back fence, then added enough dirt to bring the yard there up about three feet. He also took out some of the trees that were there so he could replace them with fruit trees and, in some cases, sheds and forts. That right side of the yard became something of a "shanty row". Eventually, it also housed a large chicken coop – but more on that later.

Taking out trees to replace them with fruit trees and sheds

"Cam's Place" was one of the structures along the fence.

My dad also brought in lots of gypsum to help the soil, as well as many loads of straw and manure from the local fairgrounds. That unintentionally caused wheat to grow in the yard since seeds were mixed into the straw and manure. He also, instead of wood chips, brought in walnut shells to act as a ground covering. He got these shells for free from the old Slatten Ranch in Antioch (which now is a shopping center). At one point, he recalled, there were about a thousand finches in the yard eating up the bits of walnut that were still in the shells.

Rototilling the soil and bringing in bricks to create a path in the backyard

Unloading manure from the Antioch Fairgrounds

My mom also helped with moving dirt around, but here,

Tippy and Andy took turns hitching rides.

I remember one especially "pungent" time when our yard was filled with newly-unloaded manure, as well as a plethora of flies that had been attracted by the smell. I had been reading Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror, which talked a lot about flies and "the smell of excrement," so the atmosphere was already a bit spooky. Then, one night I woke up at exactly 3:15 a.m. and got more than a bit freaked out.

If you aren't familiar with the story, that was the approximate time of the real-life DeFeo murders, when 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed six members of his family at their house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. It is also the time that the later resident, George Lutz, claimed he was mysteriously awakened every morning. Lutz and his family fled the house 28 days after moving in, claiming they were being terrorized by paranormal activity. On top of the flies and the smell, that put me over the edge!

Here, my dad is playing with Andy on the swing, surrounded by wheat that grew

after he brought in 20 loads of straw and manure from the Antioch Fairgrounds.

As with the front yard, my parents planted a lot of fruit trees in the backyard to go along with their vegetable garden. The photo below depicts the “tree map” my dad drew up for the backyard. It names the many fruit trees, sometimes in multiple varieties, that they planted: Nectarine, Almond, Cherry, Apricot, Peach, Plum, Tangerine, Pear, Apple, and Fig. They must have added their Persimmon tree later. My favorite was the Apricot. In more recent years, I was always happy if I was able to time a visit to Antioch to coincide with the apricots being ripe for the picking.

The “tree map” my dad drew for the backyard

My parents were also very water conscious, using a drip irrigation system for their sprinkler system to waste less water and planting many native, drought-tolerant plants. They would sometimes use buckets to catch water when it rained, and they encouraged us to take short showers (I didn’t always like that part) and to never leave the water running while washing dishes (which I haven’t always kept up).

They always kept the big California drought of 1976-77 in mind. I still remember two bumper stickers that were popular during that drought: “In this land of drought and sun, we don’t flush for number one,” and, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” At the time, as a 10-year-old kid, I remember thinking they were funny. They weren't just silly sayings, though; those guidelines were often followed in our house - lol.

In this drawing, my dad laid out the sprinkler system for the backyard,

organized around various garden and tree beds.

In the above drawing, you can also see both Auto and Wood sheds labeled on the side of the yard. My dad taught Auto Shop for many years, and he enjoyed working on motorcycles, trucks, and VW Bugs (of which he owned several). We also needed a lot of wood because, other than solar, the only “heater” our house had was a wood stove. My parents did a lot of research before choosing the wood stove they ultimately purchased, made by Vermont Castings, and that wood stove was still in good shape when they sold the house.

The ad for the Vermont Castings wood stove my parents purchased

As I mentioned in my previous post, my parents were audited twice by PG&E because the company couldn’t believe their bill could be so low. It was. As you might imagine, their unique house attracted other attention as well. In an article that appeared in the Antioch Daily Ledger examining ways families might manage increasing PG&E bills, the authors cited my parents’ house as an example of what could be achieved by looking to solar energy as a primary power source.

This article originally appeared in the Antioch Daily Ledger

The article states: “Doug Graham, 41, his wife, 39, and their three children consume as much power in their new two-story home as most suburbanites, but their PG&E bills averaged $17 per month in 1981. And even after the latest rate hikes, their bills have not been over $36…. The solar heating system for their Minta Lane home is designed to take advantage … of the sun’s warmth for heating air and water…. On a recent overcast date, when it was about 62 degrees outside, the Grahams chatted comfortably in their multi-windowed kitchen – where the temperature was well over 70 degrees.”

Mike's and my house in San Jose is not nearly that warm during the coldest winter months unless we turn up our thermostat above normal, but we did have 14 solar panels put in a few years ago, and that has made a HUGE difference in our PG&E bills. So far this year, we have paid a TOTAL of $338 to PG&E, and that was mostly due to using our gas furnace in the first four months of the year. We have not had a bill since April, and we don't have one this month (November). We probably will have a small one in December since we'll soon have to start using the furnace again, and we have once again turned on our spa (which we had turned off since we were traveling so much). The point is, you don't have to have an entirely passive solar-designed house to benefit from solar energy today!

My dad modeled the Minta Lane house after similar passive solar homes in Davis, CA, and it incorporated no gas features, just electric. As he explains in the article above, “The average home in Davis uses 20 percent less energy than those in Antioch,” largely because “Davis has adopted city ordinances which require better sealing on windows and doors, more insulation – and even special landscaping – for energy efficiency.”

Besides tightly sealing their windows and doors and adding more insulation, my parents kept those landscaping guidelines in mind as they planned their yard. While most of the trees they planted bore fruit that we could eat, one "fruitless" tree they planted was the Fruitless Mulberry in the backyard patio area. It got HUGE and provided a lot of shade to the house in the summer, helping to keep it cool (the house never had air conditioning). It dropped its leaves in the winter, allowing the house to be better warmed by the sun.

Caption: “The row of south-facing windows on the roof of the Minta Lane

house in Antioch allow the sun to warm the air inside the house while solar collectors

rest off to the side, supplying the family with hot water.”

That wasn't the only time that house was described "in print." Back when we were still building the house, my mother wrote the following letter to Popular Mechanics magazine: “My husband and I are avid readers of PM, and we both enjoy the approach to life that your magazine takes. We enjoy knowing that there are other people out there who do care about this world of ours and about our dignity as human beings. We are building a passive solar home, as we feel this will further our independence of the system. At the same time, we know we are doing our part to conserve energy in the best way possible. It is still possible for a man to design and build his own home and have it entirely paid for. This has been a real experience for our family.”

My mom’s letter as it appeared in Popular Mechanics magazine

And, what do you know! On December 5, 1980, the magazine’s editor, John Linkletter, responded! I love that he says my mom’s letter “was copied and passed around [their] office and pasted on the bulletin board,” for it “tells better than any of us can the philosophy of the readers of Popular Mechanics,” and it captures “the great satisfaction you get from being able to do things yourself.” I’m sure that must have made both my parents feel really good about the project they had undertaken.

A letter to my mom from John Linkletter, Editor of Popular Mechanics

Without question, my parents both got a lot of satisfaction from doing things themselves, but this post has gotten quite long enough. In Part IV, I will talk more about what they did with all the food they produced in the yard, as well as how they got started raising chickens. I'll also share a couple other news articles about the house and garden. For now, I’ll end with these two lovely photos taken by my parents’ friend Jerry Britton back in April 2004. They capture, from interesting angles, both the front and back yards my parents eventually created. Thanks, Jerry!

The front of the house, as photographed by Jerry Britton on April 16, 2004,

as well as the backyard down below

Love is Building a House Together: A Tribute to My Parents, Part II

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #55

by Tonya Graham McQuade

The old house we moved into on Minta Lane in April 1980;

my room was on the front left, with two large windows and minimal wall space.

In my previous post, I wrote about the early stages of my family building a house together back when I was in junior high. My parents made the decision to purchase property in Antioch back in 1979 on which they could build a passive solar house. The one third acre property already had an old house on it, but their plan was to build behind it, then tear down the old house.

For a while, as they began clearing the construction site and building the foundation, they rented out the old house to another family. However, in April of 1980, during my eighth grade year, we made the move to Minta Lane so my parents could focus on the next stage of construction: framing the house. We ended up moving on my parents' 15th anniversary, and that night - when they were completely exhausted - their friends Grace and Ed threw them a surprise anniversary party.

We arrive at Grace and Ed's house for a surprise anniversary party.

Happy Moving Day ... and Happy 15th Anniversary!

Some of the same friends who had helped with moving were there at the party, so I'm sure they were exhausted as well. My parents, though, really appreciated the effort Grace and Ed made to celebrate them. On my 15th anniversary with Mike, they gave me that same plate they received as a gift.

Moving did not require me to change schools, but it did require me to now walk one mile to school every day instead of taking the bus. Since everyone else on Minta Lane attended our school rival, Park Junior High, it was a rather lonely walk to and from school every day. Still, our new street had lots of young people my age, so it quickly became a very fun neighborhood to live in as we got to know the Telfords, Fernaus, and Hoppers.

Tonya, Andrea (aka. Andy, one of our new neighbors), Cam, and Andy

As you can see, the neighbors also got put to work! LOL.

The old house that we moved into, though, definitely left much to be desired. I don’t think there was any corner of the house that was actually at a right angle. My mom recalled that her friend Mary Weaver would get vertigo every time she visited the house! The floor sloped in many places, especially in the “laundry room” that led from the kitchen to the backyard (where my mom would catch the laundry water to use in the yard). There was a small dining room between the living room and kitchen area with just enough room for a table and chairs. There was also a rather strange little storage area off the dining room, as I recall - some sort of late, poorly built addition to the house. I just remember we kept our vacuum and other boxes of stuff in there.

The captions say, "Happy Anniversary / Never again - Why are we doing this?

Note moving blouse / Making adjustments / Laundry Water"

The kitchen was extremely narrow, with very old appliances – and you had to use a match to light the pilot for the oven. We kids were not supposed to do this, but once, I needed to bake cookies for a school event at the end of my eighth grade year and no one was home, so I tried this myself. In the process, I burnt off most of my eyelashes and singed one of my eyebrows. Fortunately, my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Needless to say, I did not try that again and attempted to hide my burnt eyelashes from my parents. I don't remember them ever saying anything, so I don't think they ever even noticed. 

This afternoon during a visit, I had the chance to ask my parents a few questions about the old house and the building process for the new house - things I didn't remember, or perhaps I never knew. When I mentioned the oven, my dad said that another issue was, there was no electrical outlet in the kitchen, so he rigged something to come from the ceiling. I'm sure that would not have passed an inspection! He also recalled that the kitchen sink leaked, so he had to rig that somehow as well.

I got the downstairs bedroom that was at the very front of the house, right off the living room - which had old shag carpet that my dad bought used at Good Will, then nailed down. One of the walls of my room was covered with 12x12 or 14x14 square mirrors, with golden squiggly designs, but they were angled so that they were in diamond shapes, with just their corners touching (so the wall also showed out in a diamond pattern). The “closet” was about two feet wide with no door or curtain on it. If I remember right, my bed had to go in front of it, so I had to stand on my bed to reach into the closet.

Here I am, painting the doorway to the old house -

we at least tried to make it somewhat better to live in.

My parents and brothers had the two upstairs bedrooms which, as I recall, did not have a proper wall between them - just a space for a door that did not exist. The floor would creak loudly when they were up there. You also had to duck your head as you walked up the stairs or you would hit your head on the ceiling. This was even true for me, measuring only 5' 2" at the time (not that I got much taller after that!).

I heard two stories today from my parents that I hadn't remembered. One, my mom said she never once vacuumed upstairs while we lived there. And two, my dad said my brothers punched holes in their wall (since they knew we would be demolishing the old house soon), and Andy (six at the time) would sometimes not want to walk downstairs to use the bathroom, so he would pee through one of the holes. Oh, my!

There was only one bathroom in the house, downstairs, with only a bathtub, and the bathroom did not have a lock. After enough complaining about that on my part, my dad finally put one in. I definitely missed being able to take a regular shower - I had to get used to using a shower hose to rinse my hair. My dad also said that the floor under the toilet was so rotten, he was afraid the toilet would fall through, so he braced it with extra plywood and did something to the pipe so it would be the right height. I think some things I have blocked from my mind.

Of course, while we were living there, construction was always going on in the backyard. There was framing of the house, walls, and stairs; roofing and tile work; plumbing and electrical wiring; papering, stuccoing, and painting the house; cabinetry; doors and windows; insulation; and more – and not necessarily in that order. Here are some photos from my parents’ album that depict the process:

At some point, my dad's dad, "Grandpa Graham," came for a visit

and helped my dad with some of the framing; my grandpa had done some

house construction in the past, and my dad had helped him with some tasks

(my dad's first project was building an outhouse in fourth grade).

On March 10, 1980, the first of many loads of lumber arrived;

soon, the first wall went up.

Stairs, South Wall, Box Window - "One Board at a Time"

Cam supervised from his tree fort as my dad and Steve Ortega,

a carpenter, worked on framing the "third story" windows - 

an important part of the passive solar design.

Framing the roof was quite a challenge -

captions say, "It ain't fun" and "Pound two, bend one"

Not sure these are OSHA-approved methods - and I think

that might be one of my brothers on top of the roof!

Then came the tile for the roof - all 27,000 pounds of it;

my dad hired some former students to help with this part.

Cam is also seen here working with his friends on a fort.

My dad also had the solar water tanks installed on the roof.

Once the framing and roof were done, we moved on to windows and insulation. I clearly remember how itchy the insulation was - I helped put it into the walls upstairs and had to learn to cut it properly. Our cat Figgy, shown below, enjoyed sleeping on it. I wondered if she felt itchy afterwards.

My parents used a lot of insulation and all double-paned windows

to improve the house's energy efficiency.

Above, you can see the house "wrapped" and ready for stucco.

"Those sheet rockers and tapers were fast" - 

my dad paid to have that part done.

Here you can see my dad working on putting in the oak-paneled ceiling.

Besides the "solar drier" and the "happy content look" my mother is wearing,

you can see the south-facing windows all along the south wall - an important part

of the passive solar design; eventually, they were lined with short water tanks inside.

Captions: Cam working for bike parts;

hours later - recently added hand brake and red tires

Eventually, the focus shifted to building, sanding, and staining

and/or painting interior cabinetry and bedroom furniture.

The new kitchen and the old kitchen (you can see the old oven

on the left that burned my eyelashes!)

I'm not sure about the timeline of these photos. I can't remember (and I don't see dates listed) for when each step of the process occurred. I do know that, on Jan. 30, 1981, we were "finished enough" to move into the new house. There was still work to do, as my freshmen dance photo can attest. You can see me walking down the stairs in my "fancy dress," then getting my corsage, with the incomplete stairs in the background. 

Making my "entrance" down the framed stairs

My date, John, putting on my corsage for the freshmen dance,

the unfinished stairs in the background

Still, we were all happy to be out of the "old house" - and the day that we knocked it down was certainly one to remember.  Lots of friends and neighbors showed up to help with "demolition day," then later, to help with the clean up. Our neighbor across the street, Joe, showed up with his tractor, which was a HUGE help in busting up the old driveway. He had also helped my dad earlier with digging the sewer line. People that drove by in the morning were surprised to drive by later in the day and see an entirely new house standing there.  

My dad discovered four layers of shingles on the old house;

my mom, bottom right, is "saving flowers," according to the caption.

Demolishing a house certainly goes faster than building one!

I recognize Carl Weaver, Bobby Weaver, and Ed Reyes helping out here; 

and album notes also mention Pete Billeci and Glen Jolivette being there.

By 3 p.m. Saturday, March 21, 1981, the "old house" was no more.

Removing the old driveway

Lots of clean up to do - and more help from friends 

(I recognize Don Winter in the front right photo)

Grace Reyes arriving with a welcome dinner.

Clearly, lots of friends stepped up to help our family with this endeavor! Some brought expertise and specialized construction equipment, but most just brought a willingness to help out in whatever way was needed. I’m sure many of them suffered sore muscles afterward! Others, like Grace in the photo above, helped by showing up with dinner when my parents needed some “food assistance.” She and her husband Ed are also the ones who threw them the anniversary party mentioned earlier. My parents both also recall fondly the day their friends Bob and Louise Casey showed up on a really hot day with a pitcher of margaritas!

So, where was I on demolition day? I can’t remember what I had going on that day, but it was something - probably a school event of some sort. I helped with cleanup afterward, but I don’t recall swinging a hammer at the walls of the old house. When I complained later about not showing up in very many of the photos during these latter stages, my dad responded with this:

As the caption here says, "Tonya helped on painting and insulation,

but Tonya, this is why there aren't more pictures of you."

This was a board from my old closet where I wrote down the names of my various "romances" during my 8th and 9th grade years. LOL. You know, Tonya + So-and-So. You can see the many scribbles, so perhaps I was a bit "boy crazy." All these years later, though, I still think it’s a rather unfair assessment.

As a freshman at Antioch Junior High, I was a student body officer, newspaper staffer, and member of various student clubs; was on the Gymnastics team and Track and Field team; sold LOTS of candy bars so I could go on a school trip to the East Coast; and participated in a fashion show for which I had to sew my dress. Outside of school, I took piano lessons; played the piano every week for our church choir; was in our church youth group; and often babysat to earn money, so I think I had plenty on my plate. Plus, I liked to hang out with my friends, go to school football games, see movies at the local theater, shop at the mall ... you know, all the normal 14-year-old girl stuff.

Painting a door and trying to keep the paint off the window

How many freshmen girls do you know who helped dig up and level construction sites; piled bricks to help create a foundation; built fences; nailed frames; installed insulation; learned to put on doorknobs; painted walls, base boards, and furniture; hung wallpaper, and ... whatever else I'm forgetting? I didn't help at every stage of house building, but I helped quite a bit, learned a lot in the process, and certainly appreciated the finished product. 

I was actually happy to find my mom's house building journal from June/July 1979 (see my previous post) where she talked about some of the work I did. A bit of validation! I remember many years later when my dad was watching me clean a paint roller at my house, he asked - somewhat surprised - how I knew to do it that way. Um, because I had to do it before on Minta Lane?

The almost finished house, as viewed from the back yard.

There was still more work to do, though - especially when it came to landscaping the large front and back yard now that the old house was gone. In my next post, I'll describe the "outdoor projects" that soon became my parents' focus and share some of the news articles related to the house on Minta Lane.

Here is the link to Part III.