The term "homemade" always was appealing to me. After all, a homemade meal, done-up by a master of down home cooking, is just about as good as it gets. Homemade, handmade crafts are often wonderful. A master craftsman, building something out of wood, in his or her home shop, can be a sight for sore eyes.
However, more and more, when I think of the word "homemade" I think of, in fact, homeowner construction techniques or repairs. I am sorry to say, stereotype or not, that kind of repair is often a bad thing. One example that really takes the homemade cake was witnessed by yours truly the other day. Take a look at the photo below -- specifically the porch roof and the two nice white posts that hold it up at the front.
Looks okay from there. But the problem is that the homemade porch and posts were in distress. The builder, who was a homemade homemaker, did not realize that the weight of the porch roof would be substantial. Therefore, he did not know that the posts require bearing. That is, the weight from above needs to go down to substantial structure that transfers the weight to the soil.
Not realizing that, instead, these posts were merely resting on the flat surface of composition (Trex-like) decking. That material is not made to be weight-bearing and it had a sag in it that looked kind of like a bowl. Given enough time that post would have ended up not on the deck but the end would have been resting in the dirt below. Can you say "Bye Bye Porch Roof?"
In all honesty, it is really quite disappointing to me that, nowadays, the word "homemade" does not conjure up the warmest and fuzziest of thoughts in my mind.
Steven L. Smith
Bellingham WA Home Inspections
Check out "This Day In History" -- music and vintage television from the 1950's through the 1980's. I enjoy writing these articles because they take me back to my days in radio broadcasting. Click on Elvis' gold record, below, to revisit those golden hits of yesteryear.
