Childhood Home Project
Interview with Barb Jensen
(My Mama)
1. Tell me interesting story from when you and pa built our house.
~The house quickly became a nicer space than the trailer, so we started sleeping in one of the bedrooms before we even had doors and windows installed. Bats flew through the bedroom, whooshing over our heads. We also had big dinner parties in the living/dining room at that time, despite the fact that there was no running water or stove or refrigerator at the house. We would set up sawhorses topped with a full sheet of plywood, cover it with butcher paper, and sit around that. I would cook the food in the trailer, wheelbarrow it all over to the house and return the dirty dishes the same way. Our guests were usually artists, so the butcher paper would look pretty cool by the end of the night.
2.What were some key decisions you made when building the house that you feel now have been the most/helpful important?
~A primary decision was to design and site the house to take advantage of passive solar energy; the result is a more comfortable house in both winter and summer (when the passive solar collection works in reverse; collecting cool night air to release during the day). In addition to comfort, passive solar collection saves money, reduces pollution, and saves energy.
3.How long did it take to complete?
~It's still not complete, but the major construction push took place over two full years; interior finishing took several more years.
4.Did you or Pa get any injuries during construction?
~Mick cut his leg badly with a chainsaw clearing land. I got really strong.
5.What was the biggest problem you encountered?
~The Multnomah County building department. We started construction without permits, got caught in the middle of construction, which made the building inspectors angry with us as a result. The permitting process became difficult, expensive, and very stressful.
6.During the process did you have anyone help you with anything on the house?
~We had help from a couple friends with the foundation, sheet-rock installation, and painting.
7.What did you get help on and why?
~Because the house is largely masonry, we felt a true and level foundation was essential and felt the expense was worth it. As for the sheet-rock and painting, we were getting tired of all the manual labor at that point, the processes were uninteresting, and we wanted the building to go faster.
8. What’s your favorite thing about the house?
~I love the flow through rooms, the play of light and shadow, and the cozy inglenook.
9.What was the hardest structural difficultly to overcome during the building process?
~Raising the roof beam was scary. It dropped and could have killed someone.
10.Tell me an interesting story from when you lived in the trailer during this time.
~I was pregnant and busy cooking tons of food to freeze to make life easier after the baby was born. Because we are so rural, whenever we had workers or friends out everyone would spend the night. Somehow, all those people and all those sleepovers resulted in all the food being eaten all the time, no matter how much I made.
11. Do you have any future plans for the house in terms of changes or additions?
~I think the upper floor could be converted into a comfortable separate living space should a need for co-housing arise. We might change the entry porch into a screened room for eating and sleeping during transitional weather periods (late fall, late spring).
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