History of this Casalinga

So...casalinga means "housewife" or "homemaker" in Italian. I like "homemaker" better, because I feel that best describes my chosen vocation. I spent four years preparing for a career in education, did indeed pursue it for a while, but then got married and started having babies, and found that I really loved being a full time homemaker. We decided to make a go of just one income, and with some financial discipline have managed to do just that. We drive used cars, have kept Christmas and vacations modest (by American standards, anyway) and could write the book on DIY. Our lives have been full and rich in experiences, and I have no regrets. 

When our kids moved into their teen years, we decided to start a home building business. My husband left the perceived "security" of a corporate job, acquired his general contractor's license and we started remodeling homes. Then we had the opportunity to build a few custom homes and found we loved doing that together. I am the form and he is the function - I bring the design element to the building process, while he handles the nuts and bolts and finances.


I have no formal training in design, but over the years have learned by experience. I possess skills as a seamstress and have worked with fabric to design and fabricate window treatments and other interior design essentials. We've remodeled numerous parts of our homes over the years and learned a lot by trial and error. Built furniture. Painted countless rooms. Re-upholstered the same chair three times. And now, we've built over 30 custom homes and counting.
So, it dawned on me recently that my dream has always been to be a home-maker...not just making my own home, but literally making homes for other people. I remember as a kid finding a book of house plans in a new section of our neighborhood and being fascinated by the drawings and floor plans...studying the layout, imagining which room could be mine. I even sketched in furniture as I dreamed about this being our new home. I probably should have studied architecture. Little did I know this child's fantasy would become my passion.

My husband actually holds the general contractor's license, but since the slump in home sales, he has been pretty busy doing some industrial construction management in Puerto Rico. I have had to 'hold the fort down' so-to-speak in our residential business for a year or so. I consult with him and together we get it done. But it is a man's world, this world of construction, and my skills and patience have been taxed. I sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to manage everything from selecting tile, carpet, paint and light fixtures (the part I love) to supervising cranky grading contractors and scheduling inspections (the part I don't love). I am very grateful for the work and that we are still operating even in the midst of a really tough housing market, but there are times...

Some of my most memorable moments working as a woman in a man's world include:

• Blushing openly when a landscaping contractor turned to face me with a T-shirt that read...well, I probably shouldn't print what it said. :)
• Pulling up to a noisy job site, so noisy that my approaching car wasn't noticed, and watching a contractor walk from behind his truck zipping up his pants. There WAS a port-a-potty on site...
• Finding a beheaded mouse inside one of our projects.
• Asking a big strong man to help scoop said mouse outside with his shovel and grinning when he said he was kind of squeamish; I promptly asked for his shovel to do it myself. His foreman thankfully jumped in and relieved me of the grim task. 
• Finding a nearly beheaded rabbit, ears missing, in another house. This time though, there was no one to rescue me. I had to take care of it myself. Yuck. 
• Seeing way more proverbial plumber's pants than I ever care to. 
• Walking into a house to find blood all over one of the floors...one of the guys had sustained a serious cut the day before and needed stitches. I was worried the clients would see it and freak out.
• Finding an escaped cow standing in front of the port-a-potty (waiting his turn?).
• Removing the long-dead carcass of a baby deer from under a set of stairs (are you getting the impression we don't build in the city?). 
• Being flirted with many times. It's been tricky to maintain my feminine identity while trying to be the tough guy/boss/payer-of-paychecks. I'm pretty sure a guy named Jose called me "mi Amor" the other day. 
• Having to pay a sub-contractor for a really crappy job and asking him to leave the premises, because I felt very unsafe being alone with him and his crew on the site.
• Enduring man-gossip...oh, yes they gossip and LOVE to talk about the other contractors they work with, complete with racial slurs, petty grievances, and lots of four-letter words. 

And I won't go into the ticks, mud, sheetrock dust, etc. that is a daily part of this world. I don't even think about wearing cute shoes to work. 

But what I actually do enjoy is seeing a job well-done and being able to openly and honestly praise the workers for their fine craftsmanship. I don't think men generally lavish that sort of thanks on other men, and as a woman I find I am quite comfortable doing that. I think the guys appreciate it, too, and they will work with a little spring in their step for me in the future. I also like carrying on the fine reputation my husband has established by paying our bills on time. A lot of people in the construction industry live paycheck to paycheck and it is my pleasure to pay them when they ask for it. 

I also love working with happy clients. Helping them make their home and build their dreams is supremely satisfying. Some are easier than others, but generally it's really fun to help people express their creativity in the place they will call home. 

Making Lamps

(Just a little disclaimer: this is a VERY amateur attempt at explaining electrical wiring...seek a better resource if you decide to try this!)

Italian sink

Anthro lamp

I first saw this lovely in Anthropologie a few months ago and knew immediately I wanted to reproduce it. My 19 year old daughter/Pinterest-addict was with me, and she expressed how much she loved this lamp! Sounded like a Christmas project to me! I started pondering how to drill holes in porcelain without splitting the teapots and cups into many pieces. I also had to keep Jessie's mind off it, as we wandered in to the store again and again so I could have a second and third and fourth look. We had transformed a large piece of Italian pottery into a sink once, so I knew there was a way. I went to Lowe's and asked for a masonry drill bit (I was secretly thinking that if this didn't work out, I'd ask my dentist, Julia, for one of her old diamond bits...teeth are a lot like porcelain, and besides, she's also really creative and would understand, I was sure). I was able to find one that would drill the perfect sized hole for the wiring.

My dear Dad is one of those men who can do just about anything, and he became my tutor for this hair-brained idea. After scouring every Home Goods store in the area, I collected enough white teapots, teacups, saucers, creamers, sugar bowls, etc. that I would need to create four lamps, all of them just a little different, but all about the same size. I went to Lowe's again and gathered the lamp "guts"... all the components that make a lamp, well, a lamp - bulb sockets, harps, long pieces of threaded pipe, cheap extension cords which I used for the wiring and plug. Dad showed me everything from how to run his drill press (slowly and patiently so as not to crack the porcelain) to how to do the wiring. He was also kind enough to make some masonite bases so that the cord wouldn't cause the lamp to be uneven on the bottom. 

Wiring 101

So, here we go. To wire a lamp, you will need:

• a bulb socket with the type of switch you prefer
• an inexpensive extension cord (cheaper than buying a length of insulated wiring)
• a length of threaded pipe for lamps
• a package of nuts and washers to fit the pipe
• a harp unit (two pieces)
• wire cutters/strippers
• two small screwdrivers, one Phillips and one flat head

Begin by cutting the "female" end of the extension cord off with the wire cutters. Discard this. The cord will have two sections. Pull them apart about 2" down. Strip the insulation off to expose the bare copper wires. Twist the copper wires (there will be many of them in each chamber of the cord) tightly clockwise, so that you have two groups of wires. Now you have a length of cord with a plug (the "male" end) at the end. This will serve as the main wiring unit for your lamp. 

Thread the cord through the length of pipe, which has a nut, the harp base, and the bottom-most portion of the socket already screwed on the top, in that order. 

(This photo shows the socket already wired which we will cover in the next paragraph.)

Now, work with the bulb socket. The socket comes apart; separate the components into three sections until you have this one alone:

   

Notice that there are two screws on the sides; one opposite the switch and one 90 degrees to it. Loosen these with a screwdriver. 

Re-twist the copper wires if necessary after threading through the pipe, tightly clockwise, so that you are working with two groups of wires. Each group will be twisted around a screw on the socket. Wrap the twisted wires clockwise around each of the screws, one twisted group of wires to one screw. Tighten screws. Place the top third over the wiring and switch, then those two sections of the bulb socket into its bottom piece which is already screwed onto the pipe.

    

The Scary Part

Now, place a bulb into the socket, plug it in, and turn the switch...if the bulb lights up (and you don't get a shock!), you've wired it correctly! Congratulations! It's a pretty awesome feeling, huh? I feel like I should get an "A" from my seventh-grade science teacher...remember that unit on electricity, and the commensurate science fair projects? 

                                       

Now you can send the long piece of threaded pipe through whatever you want to use as a decorative lamp base...in this case, teapots, cups and saucers. Super glue gel was my best friend in this project. It held all the components together so well, and didn't take long to set up. 

Cuteness!

In the process of making the ones for the girls, we were celebrating my dear friend Ana's 50th birthday. She and her husband invested 7 years of their lives living far from home to launch a church in Krakow. She has collected pottery from a town nearby, and I have seen it in stores around here. So I was able to get enough pieces to create a lamp for her, too, and celebrated her as a "light" to Poland for all those years at her party. The blues and florals in this pottery make a really beautiful piece. And it holds special meaning for her family.

Final Touches

I had several lids from creamers that were super-cute, so I really wanted to try to fashion some finials for the lampshades. I bought inexpensive metal finials from Lowe's and super-glued the top of each to a good-sized nut, so that there would be a flat surface on which to glue the creamer lid. When that was dry, I glued it inside the lid...all of this involved some stabilizing using spools of ribbon or tape. In the end, I had some really cute finials! I didn't purchase shades for each lamp, so that the girls could choose their own, but I "practiced" with one I had around the house. But there are tons of adorable shades at Lowe's, Home Goods, and other places right now. 

             

I couldn't wait til Christmas. Plus, my oldest daughter was going to get hers in the mail, and I wouldn't get to see her reaction. So I gave them out when everyone was here for Thanksgiving. It was a climactic moment when they opened their boxes! Such fun!