“Put the trowel down before I take it away from you,” said my wife. We were experiencing the most difficult day during the construction of our house. I wanted to do as she asked but the self-leveling concrete topping was rapidly curing in place, and I was intent on getting the floor prepared to accept hardwood floor installation the next week.
The leveler was not behaving as it should. It was caking up and certainly not self-leveling.
From my wife’s perspective, I was not behaving either, as I looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t stop because if I do I’ll be grinding it off again tomorrow!”
That was the only time during the construction of our home that our communication and cooperation broke down
Kara and I had taken on a task, similar to canoeing, that required one person to lead, one to follow and both to communicate to get somewhere together, and we failed on that day. We are great in a canoe, but terrible at leveling concrete.
A warning to all do-it-yourselfers and weekend warriors out there: concrete leveling should be left to experienced professionals, or at least to couples with intact senses of humor and those that can forgive and forget.
Oh, and add more water than the concrete instructions tell you.
Kara, my wife, is an experienced do-it-all homebuilder with a keen eye for detail and a draconian style for running a jobsite schedule. She can spot a defect from three houses down. It’s not uncommon for her to ask, “is that sign out of plumb?” as we drive past a commercial strip.
“I can’t tell; I would need to put a level on it,” is my most frequent response, even though I know she’s probably right. Her eye for detail is better than mine.
But I do know my way around a construction site and have built a few homes for myself over the past 10 years. I am the president of Robinshore Incorporated, a development and construction company that has been in operation since 1980.
Robinshore has a team of experienced construction superintendents that really are the force in the field that get our projects done and I am focused on everything from sales to warranty questions. So when Kara and I decided to get married and build a home together, the question was asked, “Who is going to build the house?”
My immediate, masculine impulse was to claim the task as my own and to declare that Kara should step back and watch the concrete and lumber fly. But, I am a student of objectivity so I thought about other alternatives.
I am occupied with the daily operations of a corporation and my attention could not be fixed in the construction of our home between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Kara, on the other hand, travels between her projects throughout the day and would be perfectly aware of everything happening – or not happening – on the construction site, and would not hesitate to tell me in detail what was wrong with her/my/our jobsite. This struck me as being an utterly impossible scenario in which to develop the loving and caring foundation that we both wanted for our marriage.
Furthermore, I envisioned a worst-case scenario construction mutiny in which I would be cast from my position as captain of the ship by my first mate for dereliction of duty during jobsite hours. That simply would not do.
In the end, we crafted a better scenario that created a well-managed and supervised jobsite, but also saved my ego. I asked Kara to build the house and declared her to be the most capable builder based on her ability to be at the jobsite when the action was taking place, and I would act as the owner and her client during construction.
In this way, when one of our trade partners asked how or when something needed to happen, I could reply, “You’d better ask the builder and she is over there.” But I also had the final say in details of the house and Kara could tell anyone, “I’m sorry; that detail needs to change because the owner, my customer, won’t accept it that way.”
In my career, I have witnessed arguments between homebuyers that I am sure resulted in separate sleeping quarters – clearly a nightmare on the path to creating a dream home. But with the system we devised, we achieved a balance with one another, a clear communication path with our vendors, suppliers and trade partners and, most importantly, a cooperative approach with each.
Just like many challenging circumstances that couples face, homebuilding can be a true test of communication and of your relationship, even if you’re not doing it yourself. The questions of who has the final say in colors, materials, floor plans and (take a deep breath before you even say the word) budget, all nee to be addressed before you are in the midst of a frenetic project.
Kara and I survived and grew together during our project because we talked about the potential conflicts we might encounter, we showed trust in each other and agreed on a game plan to avoid all but the unforeseen self-leveling “issues.”
So who built the house? The best answer is, “we did!”
