Of Pergolas and Bruschetta: A Perfect Saturday

Sketching designs

What's fun for us to do on a Saturday, you might ask?  Ah, that's too easy. It's a husband-wife building project, of course!  I love the convenience of apartment living but I dearly miss doing design/construction projects with Nick (see previous complaints here). So, today, in honor of my upcoming birthday, we did a project together. Specifically, we made a pergola (pronounced PER-gola if you're from the US, or per-GO-la if you're from Down Under) for the ex-pat community garden. We've not made one of these before, and we suspected (ok, KNEW) that doing this project in Korea would be different than our various US projects; on the plus side, we don't need building permits or inspections here (well, I don't think so).

Step 1: Design & planning.  I sketched some ideas and Nick made them prettier.  We walked out some rough dimensions in the garden then finalized a list of needed lumber and hardware.  Oops: we're in Korea, so things like "12-foot 4x4s" all needed to be re-calculated into metric. *Sigh.*

Step 2: Lumber: We scavenged enough good 2x4s from discarded benches on campus (hooray!) so we could take those off the list of things to buy. We then drove to the lumberyard and wandered around a bit (even though we maybe kind of knew Korean store owners are not fans of that American behavior -- hey, remember Little House on the Prairie? The customer would give the clerk a list of desired supplies and then waited for the items to be fetched. Pretty much like that here, too.)  Before we got accosted (I mean, waited on), I took great pleasure in now being able to read some of the Korean signs (오크 -- pronounced oh-kuh-- means oak!).  When Lumber Guy saw my design sketch he said "나무" (nah-moo), which literally means "tree."  (I had secretly hoped he'd say "wood" because Koreans drop the initial "w" so it's pronounced "ood."  Which cracks me up every single time for no very good reason, but I think of the effect on that old tongue-twister:  "How much ood ood a oodchuck chuck if a oodchuck could chuck ood?"  See?  It's funny.  And it's the same with words like "woman" and "wool."  But it's not a Korean issue with "w" per se - the word "wow" is typically pronounced "wah!," which also cracks us up.  And while we're way, way off track, we noticed a restaurant today called "Sushi Wa" which means "Raw Fish Wow." Is that a great name or what?)

Secret pic of Lumber Guy; our lumberyard (across from Hanaro Mart); Nick reverse-engineering the ood tie-downs.

Ahem.  Back to the lumberyard.  We have unexpected mathematical joy because lumber here is mostly imported from North America so it's in ENGLISH measurements!  Even so, I took perverse delight in Lumber Guy saying things that sounded like "doo bah po" (2x4) and "po bah po" (4x4).  On the other hand,  I returned the language favor by using the wrong number system to describe how many boards we needed (I used the Sino-Korean system and asked for "sah gay" instead of the Korean system to ask for "nay gay") but Lumber Guy nicely smiled and told Counter Lady of our order.  She then used her computer to look up the prices, which she carefully recorded and totaled by hand on a paper invoice. While baffled by her approach to technology, I happily observed that prices weren't much higher than at home: our 4" x 4" x 12' pressure-treated boards cost us about $17 each (taxes included); at Lowe's, a 4" x 4" x 10' pressure-treated board is about $13 each (plus tax; and a nod to Google for its pricing assistance).

Awesome Torque Screw vs. what we can get in Korea.

Step 3: Hardware store.  Now, remember: we're in Korea.  Just because a place sells lumber doesn't mean it sells anything that might cut it or attach it to anything else.  Thus, a trip to the hardware store.  (Have I mentioned how much I enjoy it when our hardware guys see us? The son, whose English is quite good, usually says "OOH!" and throws down his cigarette, coming out to the curb to greet us.  I think he's secretly hoping for another Dumb American story to tell over dinner.)  Today we showed him our lumber and tried to describe the torque screws we wanted (Lowe's actually calls them "Grip-Rite Countersinking-Head Polymer-Coated Star-Drive Deck Screws."  Try translating that.).  Alas, even after drawing a picture, we had to settle for basic steel Phillips' heads -- our hardware guys didn't have the torques.  *Sigh.*

Step 4: Lunch.  No good project is complete without (a) regular refreshments.  Twenty years ago (ok, 5 years ago) I would have also said "no good project is complete without...(b) a trip to the hospital," but I'm now far wiser about announcing my pessimistic safety forecast and Nick is less accident-prone. (Ok, to be completely fair, WE are less accident-prone.  I showed my mangled index finger to a young neighbor girl today, who wondered if our circular saw was a toy. Ah, no. Stand back, child).

(photo source: http://eatwithnat.com/)

Back to topic (a): refreshments. Today, the Italian culinary planets were aligned: we had on hand, all at the same time, french bread (thanks to the new Eat Bread bakery by the lumberyard, where I correctly requested 2 baguettes: "doo gay bah-gay-tah"), feta cheese (thank you Susan for your Costco run!), fresh-plucked basil (thank you Grace for the i-herb order!), olive oil, garlic, and a deep red tomato. Ahhh.... Just pause with me for a minute to imagine an entire year gone by without an exquisite plate of bruschetta.  We were weepy with fond memories of many plates shared with friends and family in Chicago, Iowa, and Michigan. Funny how food brings your heart home so quickly (and can make one just a wee bit snappy at certain offspring who appear from nowhere to claim a right to share this heavenly refreshment).

Nick measures; salvaged benches; Nick's students recruited to
put said benches in the van; tools at the ready.

Step 5: Back to work. Duly refreshed, we set up shop in our building's parking garage because (a) the elevator lobby has the building's only external outlet and (b) the shade felt good and (c) the breeze seemed pleased to sweep the garage of sawdust for us and I am fundamentally a very lazy person. (That's really why I grow perennials instead of annuals or veggies, you know. Transplant, water, one more water, and that's it: live or die, because I'm done coddling.  Which could also be maybe why my college roommate dashed my goal to become a counselor: no patience for more than 3 sessions).  Where was I? Oh, yes, we borrowed a few tools (thanks, Mundys!), measured and cut all the boards (ok, honestly, I just sat on the boards while Nick measured and cut), pulled nails from the salvaged boards (I did a LOT of this, so don't get all judgmental, dear reader, about any uneven labor distribution thus far--and thanks for Kurt for your help!).  And then we drove the cut lumber up to the community garden (yes, we drove.  With the van. Stop judging--I already admitted I was lazy) where David and two of his friends had obediently, if not altogether joyfully, dug the holes for the corner posts (thank you Daniel and Gunnar!).

Step 6:  Friendly Advice.  What I did not mention yet was the significant amount of neighborly commentary, advice, warnings and dire prophecies offered by folks passing through our project.  I love my neighbors (especially the Korean who saw me working and sent her husband straightaway to help), but this scenario was not quite the private Husband-Wife Project Day I had initially envisioned. We're not in Kansas anymore - why do I keep forgetting that?

Step 7: Where were we?  Oh yes, back to the garden. We put in the posts, made supports and did lots of measuring and leveling, then Elisabeth and I filled the 3' deep holes with rocks and beach sand, using plenty of water to cement it all in there.  Tracey and Alex wandered by and got seduced into helping with measuring, leveling, and general encouragement via stories of various Australian characters (besides themselves).

Elisabeth packing the ground around the corner posts; a documented family project;
Tracey & Alex Banks lending their assorted assistance

Ah.... The project is not quite done, but it was a wonderful, perfect, Korean day.