august 1971.
Building the garage. It was made quite large, 6x4m so it can take two cars - the plan was that Milivoje would keep his car here, as he had no garage and was only four blocks away (this did happen a lot in the next three years, at least during winter). The masons were the usual ones who did the conversion of anteroom into bathroom two years ago. The roof would be another flat slab of concrete on those profiled brick blocks with reintofrcement - same as the back pantry - and these were laid on the pre-paved paths leading from the gate to the garage's spot in the back of the yard.
This is the last shot of the shed as it stood before. From near right bottom, the plant with long leaves is a cactus. Cacti were quite popular, and generally all these mediterranean plants - oleanders, lemons, ficus etc - and it was actually a piece of fashion which practically anyone could afford. Small florist shops were selling young plants in small flowerpots, and any household that pretended to look nice would find a place for them. The white box covered with rugs is the old smederevac, wood stove, which used to heat up the kitchen and cook the food until 1963, was shoved into the shed, and was now awaiting its destiny (which was to be installed in the rear of the new pantry, to roast bell peppers and maybe cook a few things. Behind it were the oil drums, in which the heating oil was held. In a couple of years the oil heater will be ditched in favor of a gas heater, and these barrels, one of them more than half full, will lay forgotten in the far corner of the garage until 25-XII-1993.. The third barrel will be cut in half to make two flowerpots in which the oleanders were grown (the saplings brought from Borik), which we then brought inside (the garage or anteroom?) for the winter and carried out in the spring, which I sincerely hated, because dad, in his innate despise for ergonomics, made the carrying handles out of thinnest possible wire. While it could carry the load, it just as efficiently cut into your fingers.
The wooden barrel by the gutter pipe was for sour cabbage, as any decent house had to make its own, there wasn't a way to package and sell it industrially, and we must have sarma every winter. To make sure the fermentation was properly anaerobic, the surface of it would be covered with clean washclotshs, then with scrubbed and washed slats (which were previously the lid of the barrel), on top of which something heavy would be laid. In our case it was a half of a broken grindstone.
The brick column on the left is holding the corner of the roof. The outhouse is right behind it, and, amazingly, I can't find a single photograph of that.
On this picture is the moment when the shed roof was stripped of tiles, and Živa Sejin (the one who screwed up the lobby foundation v. june 1959.) is on the top of the ladder, dismantling the cabin sheltering the attic entrance.
It took several weeks to build, and building it wasn't the end of it - fitting the door, sewer, water, power... took even longer. They had to drill yet another hole in the old well-cum-septic-tank to drive the drain pipe into it, because dad wanted to wash the fića in the garage (didn't happen with that car, but with the next it did).
The garage door was a job on its own. Its turn was near the end of the month. This being a two car garage, the door was quite wide, almost three meters. To make opening and closing feasible at all, uncle Staja made them in four panes, two left two right. To keep the upper beam straight and to avoid bolting the outer wings straight into concrete, a frame of L profiled 50mm steel was made. Someone (himself?) brought an arc welder and welded it on the spot, and it held well. True, the beam did sag a little, just about a millimeter for these fiftysome years, and that door can still be neatly opened and closed.
By chance, the neighbors also had masons around. They had a shed adjacent to our yard, and it was old and they probably guessed it would cost too much to repair, so they tore it down and then built a back wing to their house. So this summer we were one yard. The line was almost never crossed, though. I see they built a garage a year ahead of us.
Their son was about four years old then, and the grandfather was still around. The granny was, I reckon, already gone.
Their masons had a proper concrete mixer; ours were lucky that we had running water, no need to pump the water, so for larger amounts they'd heap up the gravel and cement on the paved portion of the yard, and mix it up with shovels, then make a hole in the middle and pour water from the garden hose. Previously, there'd have to be a lidless barrel around, and enough water pumped into it so that they'd scoop it by buckets. Seeing how there's a barrel and a bucket in operation, I'd say that the hose was too slow, so it was first used to fill the barrel in advance, that's 200 liters ready.
Mentions: june 1959., 25-XII-1993., Borik, fića, Milivoje Stojanović, sarma, Sejini, uncle Staja, in serbian