Exploring New Homes

One day over the summer, I was heading over to my son’s house when I drove past a row of new homes under construction.  As I drove by, I noticed a man standing on the sidewalk in front of one of them.  He appeared to be looking in and it got me wondering if he was pondering going inside to explore the unfinished home.  It reminded me of a fun activity I used to do with my kids when they were younger.

In our previous house where our kids spent most of their time growing up, we used to go on bike rides together throughout the neighborhood.  Although we lived in an older neighborhood, we would occasionally come across a new home under construction.  When we did, we would stop and go inside.

We never thought we were trespassing since we only went in those homes under construction that did not have any doors installed.  We figured the absence of doors was an open invitation for us to look inside.  But just to be on the safe side, we never entered a house where construction workers were actively working.

I am sure you have driven or walked by homes like these where the exterior walls are up and the roof is on but glancing through the front door gap, all you can see is a forest of 2 X 4 studs.  Maybe you never thought to go inside.  But we did because we thought it was great fun.

Inside we would find it was just a maze of 2 X 4 studs suggesting future rooms.  The kitchen was always easy to locate as in early phases of construction, plumbing and electrical would be roughed in to make future connections.  Many of the homes were two or three stories and as long as rudimentary steps were installed, we could explore the upper floors too.

As we explored, we would imagine which bedroom we would want or what family might eventually buy the home.  Would it be a couple newly married or a family with a number of boys and girls of various ages?  We would try to envision the finished house just based on seeing its 2 X 4 stud skeleton.

As we moved from room to room, we could step through walls just like a ghost but which would eventually be sealed up with sheetrock.  In this unfinished state, it would allow me to explain to my kids about HVAC systems, return vents and registers.  We could follow snake-like electrical wiring drilled through the studs back to the main electrical panel, which in those days were often in the master bedroom closet.  I could also point out how often bathrooms with entrances in different rooms were built back-to-back to share common plumbing.

If our bike rides were frequent enough, we could follow the progress of the construction workers on subsequent visits and get to see if some of our guesses about what a room would look like were correct.

But sadly, we never got to see the fully finished home as once exterior doors were installed, they were usually locked no doubt to avoid items being stolen or interiors being vandalized.

After we bought our current home, we got to tour even more homes under construction.  We moved onto a street which, at the time, only half the homes had already been built.  And throughout our neighborhood, there were whole new phases of the subdivision under construction for us to explore.

After seeing that man in front of the unfinished home, it got me thinking how we got started having these explorations in the first place.  I’ve always been interested in learning and seeing how things work.  Being able to see just the skeletal structure of a home is like having X-ray vision to see the inner workings of a home.

I also recalled as a young boy, I used to tape pieces of notebook paper together and draw out huge floor plans of homes.  I even have a vague memory that sometime during junior high school, I walked past a shop class and through the door saw a scale model of a framed out home, just the studs.  Since I was already into models at that age, it really inspired me to want to one day build my own (I never did although I have built a number of 1/12-scale doll houses from kits).

Before I started college, I thought I would become an architect.  But when I explained to a guidance counselor that I wanted to design homes, I was made aware of the reality that home builders rarely hired architects but rather built from just a few previously drawn up plans.  We have all seen those “cookie cutter” neighborhoods where all the homes are alike.  In fact, the first home my wife and I bought was built in the 1950s when this practice was quite prevalent.

On our street were a number of what were referred to as the “Tennessee Floor Plan” houses.  The only difference from one house to the next was that the main part of the house (three bedrooms and two bathrooms) was laid out either to the left or to the right of the front door.  I often wondered if the builder simply turned the blueprints over to yield a mirror image of the original design using the backside of the plans.

Yes, seeing that man brought back fond memories of those adventures long ago with my kids.  It could have even served as inspiration for my oldest son who in fact did become an architect.  One just never knows what fun activities we enjoy with our kids may motivate them one day to pursue a future career.