Chapter 51: The House is Built
We finished lunch amidst laughter and continued to build the house in the afternoon.
The foundation was completed at around two o'clock, and the stones were thirty centimeters above the ground.
Accompanied by the crackling sound of firecrackers, the two door frames were erected.
“Okay!”
“Make a fortune!”
"Everything goes well!"
Everyone gave their blessings, and many people were envious of the brand new gate.
There are many houses in the village like Lin Heng's, where more than a dozen people live in one house.
Lin Heng's family is building a new house, but they don't know when it will be completed.
"Okay, now we're going to start building the wall. Everyone, work hard." Carpenter Liang said, and then he arranged for people to start working.
Place the 40-centimeter-wide wooden frame on the stone foundation, pour half of the loess on it, and then several people start to smash it hard with large wooden hammers.
After tamping it down, you can add acorn trees to act as steel bars. These acorn trees are both horizontal and vertical, and they act as a skeleton, making the earth wall stronger.
The loess required here should not be too wet or too dry. Generally speaking, it is best to pinch a handful of it with your hands, and then loosen it so that it can slowly spread out.
In local dialect, it is called mouse bite, which is that slightly damp feeling.
Although it is a sunny day today, the loess on the ground is still very wet due to the recent rain and cannot be used.
Normally, you take dry loess and mix it with water soaked with glutinous rice flour to make a mouse bite. Today, I can only add some glutinous rice flour and some white lime that the owner of the brick factory brought up when he pulled up the tiles today.
Because the soil was too wet today, we only built a 50-centimeter-high circle of wall in the afternoon.
The next day, the soil had dried up a lot, so they just added some glutinous rice flour and started working on it. In one day, Lin Heng's house had been completed to a height of three and a half meters.
When it reaches this height, you can lay the second floor's pillows. The pillows are some longer and thicker pieces of wood. The surface is slightly carbonized and then brushed with tung oil. Then they can be placed on the wall.
Generally, the interval between boards is two meters. After they are set up, the wooden boards on the second floor can be laid.
The floor pillows had already been completed, and it took only a dozen minutes to build them on the morning of April 10th. After that, we continued to build the walls.
During this day, the wall was raised another three meters, and after it became a triangle, the wall was completed.
Early in the morning of the 11th, firecrackers were set off again, and the main beam of Lin Heng's house was erected. It was an eight-meter-long elm beam, carbonized at both ends and painted with tung oil.
"Good luck on the beams!!"
Everyone shouted loudly.
Father Lin distributed a handful of candy to everyone to pick up, and the children and women from the village who came running over were overjoyed.
Lin Heng was looking on the ground, while Xiulan was holding her daughter and looking at the house, not knowing what she was thinking.
"Show me your hand!"
Lin Heng suddenly grabbed Xiulan's hand, spread it out and looked at it carefully. Fortunately, although there were calluses on the palm of her hand, there were no wounds or cracks.
"What's wrong?" Xiulan looked at him puzzled.
Lin Heng smiled slightly and shook his head, "It's nothing. Your good days are coming. I will make sure that you don't even have calluses on your hands."
The house reminded him of his past life.
The house he built in his previous life was bigger than this one. After the family split up, Xiulan relied on everything for the family. Not only did he idle around, but he also owed debts.
Xiulan worked from dawn to dusk, her hands were covered with cuts, her body ached all day long, and she didn't eat well. She didn't have a meal of meat for two months, and she was so thin that she would fall down if the wind blew.
How could a body like that not get sick? He eventually became seriously ill and was bedridden. It was only after his wife passed away that he discovered all this.
Only when you lose something do you know how to cherish it and feel regret.
Something like this will never happen again in this life, Lin Heng said secretly, clenching his fists.
Xiulan looked at him and asked in surprise, "Did you get scum in your eyes again?"
"Yes." Lin Heng chuckled.
"It's good that you can stay like this these days. If we both work hard, our family will definitely become prosperous in the future." Xiulan looked at Lin Heng and said slowly.
The life she had been living for the past two days was just as she had dreamed.
The weather was very kind to Lin Heng these few days, with sunny days all the time. After the main beam was installed, Lin Heng left behind three uncles and a carpenter to help with installing the side beams, rafters, and laying wooden strips.
The work was done in half a morning. The uncle looked at Lin Heng and shouted, "You and your eldest brother help move the tiles. Put them on quickly."
"Okay!" Lin Heng didn't want to be lazy, so he asked his eldest brother to help move the tiles.
Earth houses are most afraid of water. The drier the loess becomes, the harder it becomes. Once it comes into contact with rain, it becomes soft and moist, so the roof must be sealed first.
Moving the tiles made Lin Heng so tired that his back and waist ached and his legs trembled. If he hadn't eaten well these days, he really wouldn't have been able to continue.
Fortunately, he had suffered all the hardships in his previous life, so he could still overcome the physical pain.
In the afternoon, when the setting sun was shining and half the sky was red, the tile roof of Lin Heng's house had been completed, reflecting red light in the sun, so he no longer had to worry about raining.
“My decline started from the new house in my previous life, and my rise starts from here in this life!” Lin Heng said secretly in his heart, sitting on the roof, looking at the sunset.
On his eldest brother's side, the second floor's pillows have already been installed, and the roof construction should be completed the day after tomorrow.
Walking down, Lin Heng looked at his own house, a very traditional mud house with a main door and six windows, three on the first floor and three on the second floor.
It was at his request that we got six windows, because the current windows are made of wood, which is easily damaged and not well sealed. If too many windows are opened, the house will be unsafe and cold.
Usually only one or two windows are open.
The main structure is completed, and the next step is the interior construction, which also takes a lot of time.
The house is definitely not habitable now. The earthen walls have just been dried, the doors and windows are not installed properly, the floor inside the house has not been tidied, and the earthen walls in the yard have not been built.
Early in the morning on the 12th, Lin Heng began to clean up his house. Even though it was a temporary residence, he wanted to make it conform to his own aesthetics and habits.
"Carpenter Liang, the two windows in the yard are hinged windows. I prefer windows that can be opened.
For the west-facing window at the back, let’s use the old type that is nailed shut and can’t be opened.”
Lin Heng said as he looked at the carpenter who was doing the carpentry work.
"No problem." Carpenter Liang nodded with a smile. He was also happy to do this more difficult job, which would take longer and earn more money.
"Lin Heng, please help pass the wooden board!" my uncle shouted from upstairs.
"Okay!" Lin Heng quickly handed over the board.
After my uncle Lu Honghai took it, he pinned it on the pillow.
The wooden floor boards on the second floor have not been painted with tung oil yet, but that doesn’t matter, you can paint them all at once after the order is placed.
Except for the main room's floor which was only half-sealed, all other rooms were sealed.
After the floor slab was set, Lin Heng came over to deal with the ground. The floor in the house had already been hammered solid and did not need to be hammered again.
Lin Heng moved the stones that were not used in laying the foundation and laid them on the ground, then hammered them flat.
Without cement and floor tiles, we can only use stones. The ground made of pure soil is too uncomfortable and we can't stand on it if it gets wet.
"You have a good idea, and it looks very nice." Carpenter Liang praised.
Nowadays, most people's homes have yellow soil floors without any other tiles. After Lin Heng's treatment, the floors are indeed much more beautiful.
"Not bad." Lin Heng chuckled.
Recommend a book written by a friend. You can read it if you are bored.
(End of this chapter)
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