Behind The Rock House we originally had a garage and a wash house. When I was probably about nine or ten years old, Mom and Dad decided to add a “shop” onto the wash house. I don’t remember a lot about the construction. I think Dad and the boys did most of it. It mostly amounted to extending the garage roof further over and adding a shop room onto the back and side of the washhouse. We also put an upstairs over the shop room where we could put mattresses so people could sleep up there.
I don’t remember whether the motivation to build a shop was because we needed more sleeping space in the summer when Vard came home, or whether it was to provide a place where Terry and Vard could work on projects (both of them had taken shop in school and were always building something), or whether it was a way to teach construction skills to all of us. Whatever the reason, it was built. We built some stairs on the west wall that provided access to not only the room above the shop but to the attic of the garage as well.
The upstairs of the shop became a favorite place to sleep in the summertime because it was cool and we could have our friends over to “sleep out” if we wanted. I think I slept up there every summer until my brothers left on missions or for school and a bed became available in the house in the summertime.
The shop also became a busy place. It was a place where we had a workbench on which to work and construct “things”. We organized it so that the tools were on a peg board on one wall. Terry had a “shopmate” that had a table saw, sander, lathe and drill press all in one, and we used it a lot. We spent lots of time in the shop, either downstairs or upstairs. The wash house wasn’t used much except as a place for the freezer and for storage. It also became the location of the “separator” we used to separate the milk from the cream (see “Separating the Milk from the Cream”).
Later when I took shop I also used the shop at home for doing things. Dad and I overhauled the Volkswagen engine in there and I had a small welder. It was a fun place to work and create. I can remember Terry and Vard building a motor scooter that never did work very well. We also tried to put a motor on the back of a bicycle to make a “motor bike” but that didn’t work too well either. I think Terry was more successful with some of his wood working projects. We used the shop to good advantage when we were in scouts as well.
Later in life I realized the value of having a place where kids could putter and create “things.”
When all of us kids left home, Dad used the shop a lot himself. He bought some new equipment and used it to work on various projects. He reorganized the tool storage and made it more user-friendly. When I think about the shop I still have fond memories of the time we spent there, both upstairs and down. The last time I looked, the homemade sign Terry put up under the electrical switch box still had the same message we became familiar with as we went in and out of the shop. It simply says, “Douse the lights!”