Just in time for Easter, BuildMeUpButtercup is giving away a handmade egg holder. For a chance to win, FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE to the blog at BuildMeUpButtercupBlog.wordpress.com. You can follow Team TCATN on the road to SkillsUSA Nationals this summer. And you can eventually read about why I am obsessed with making egg holders. To enter, click the … Continue reading An Egg-citing Giveaway!

Right about the time I realized we had framed the openings of our SkillsUSA structure at the dimensions of the actual window and door units, rather than at the rough opening sizes called for in the plan notes, that is, right as we realized we had to pull the whole damn thing apart and start … Continue reading And the Winner is…

Team TCATN just wrapped up the teamworks construction competition at SkillsUSA in Chattanooga. While we're still waiting for the final results, it's no small triumph that our four-person squad didn't humiliate ourselves. I think I was afraid we'd wire and plumb our structure in such a way that water would spew out and we'd electrocute … Continue reading The Thrills of Skills

Team TCATN is on the road to SkillsUSA now--literally, on 24 East headed to Chattanooga, where we'll compete against other TCATs in carpentry, plumbing, electrical and masonry.  At present, I'm in the van with a few Building Construction Technology teammates, listening to country music and watching YouTube videos of electrical wiring. I've got my tool … Continue reading SkillsUSA: Chattanooga or Bust

While ten hours of online OSHA training took more than twelve hours to complete and left me with haunting visions of electrocution, suffocation and 16d nails lodged in the skull, the required certification has had one remarkably cheerful impact: Finally, the rest of my construction classmates are beginning to understand what I worry about. As a mom—three … Continue reading Introducing OSHA Mom

We talk about OSB at construction school a lot. OSB is an engineered lumber, kind of like particle board, made from wood shavings bonded with wax and resin. It comes in 4x8 sheets and is commonly used for sheathing, subfloor and roofing. For as much OSB as we use, you’d think we’d have a better … Continue reading OSB? Yeah, You Know Me

Team TCATN heads to Chattanooga on April 10, for the SkillsUSA competition. I'm not good with sports analogies, but I'd say this is every bit as exciting as a preliminary a cappella competition in Pitch Perfect. If we win, we go to Nationals. Needless to say, we're buckling down to get ready. This week, we did … Continue reading The Road to SkillsUSA

Today I wandered down the hill to the automotive repair program at TCATN to ask if someone could look at my car. They'll do that for TCATN students, because the auto students need hands-on experience. I was happy to help out by sharing a decrepit Cheeto-stained minivan with a suspicious tick in the front wheel. … Continue reading Auto Motivation

Back in the fall, when my sister Polly and I enrolled in construction school, one of the first projects the class undertook was to build a pair of barn doors to hang on the school's utility shed. One student took the lead, a carpenter from Egypt, whose woodworking skills far outweighed his English fluency. With … Continue reading Locking the Barn Doors

In seven months of construction school, I've spent more time inside a dumpster than at any time in my life. That's because inside a dumpster, space is the chief currency. You can't just be chucking stuff in willy-nilly. You've got to strategize the use of cubic footage, which means sometimes you just gotta get in there and … Continue reading Dirty Jobs: Paging Mike Rowe