Originally posted on 2018-10-19
I feel this should go without saying, but I want to make sure it is 100% clear.
We DO NOT support factories of children making shoes or clothes, or any of the horrible images that may come to mind when you hear the phrase “child labor”.With that out of the way, renovating this house is definitely a family project where we include the youngest member as often as we can. Not only is she learning many valuable skills (many I myself didn’t learn until well into adulthood) and getting an education from her civil engineering technologist father, but she also gets the satisfaction of knowing she helped when the project is complete. We have also discovered over the last little while that there are some tasks that her small size makes her the ideal person to do it.
I was vacuuming up the concrete in the crawl space to prepare it for the vapor barrier when she wanted to help. Her small size and light weight actually made it much easier for her to move around than it was for me, and I believe she completed the task faster than I could have done it. She could walk normally on the insulation without worry of breaking it (where I was careful to remain light-footed), she comfortably fit between the joists, and could easily duck under them to move on to the next spot.
Also, I don’t know if this would be the case for all 5 year olds or not (as I only really know the one) but we asked her to vacuum up all the debris on the concrete plates and the foundation, and she made sure she got it ALL. Very thorough, to the point that I felt really bad that more debris has fallen down there before we had a chance to put the vapor barrier in, but she has happily volunteered to vacuum it again.
Her small size makes her handy at other tasks too. Need the ground searched to make sure you have picked up every single nail? She’s your girl. Need something held down by the floor so you can properly secure it up higher? She’s got you covered. She also makes a terrific gofer as she knows the tools almost as well I do at this point. (Again, didn’t start learning them until I was already an adult.) She does a really good job at the tasks that she can do that we don’t even need to exaggerate in out praise.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have some challenges, she is still five after all. There are days that she simply doesn’t want to help and there are days that she can’t really help with what we’re doing at that moment. But even on those days she is still more helpful than she knows simply by making us realize that fun that can found in some pretty unlikely places. The picture, for example, where she got the idea to make a fort out of our delivery of insulation, then served us (imaginary) hot drinks as she realized that we were probably getting cold between working outside where the temperature had dropped, and inside which was newly sealed, but not much warmer than outside. Think a little consideration and an imaginary hot coffee doesn’t help you keep going for another twenty minutes to get the job done? Think again.
Short update on progress this week
More detail will probably come next week, but this week we managed to put the outer insulation on the west wall, as well as cover it with house wrap, and start to install the outer insulation on the north wall as well. We have cut the hole for the door going into the kitchen and have made a make-shift door for that spot until the delivery arrives. The base boards for the heat have all been installed, now we are just waiting on propane and the finishing touches to the boiler.
Huron The Lake 