In one of these letters there is mention of the quickly rising costs of lumber; Camp Carson nearby Colorado Springs had been renamed Fort Carson, and an enormous building program had begun there. We were caught by the rising prices on everything needed to complete the house.
Before Robert began writing, he had some interest in planning single-family houses. He had several plans of his own. However, those were for a flat area, and the lot we purchased was on a hillside. Neither one of us was prepared, though, for the intricacies of the actual building of a house.
I was required to read Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. We both avoided the mistakes in that story, but we made a brand new set of our own.
July 9, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
...We are going ahead with building and have the foundation in, the services in, and the septic tank built, but I shall have to shut down the job again and wait if monies do not come in. Yes, I know I could remedy that by giving you new copy and I wish to Heaven I could-but I am so fouled up with...handling payroll and purchases, and trying to be an architect that I can't write stories. I continue to have much trouble with the contractor.
August 13, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
...I am sorry to get tough with him, but I 've got to have the money. The checks you sent me got me past this week's payroll-but I had a serious disappointment on another matter this Week and I am more strapped than ever. In the meantime, the army is reactivating a base here with a million dollar construction program and all local lumberyards immediately boosted their prices. Lumber has gone up 60% around here in the last six weeks. Nevertheless, the roof is being framed up now; we'll have it closed in by the end of this week-and we'll move in around Labor Day, if my nerves hold out. Then I intend to stop everything and start turning out new copy.
August 14, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Your letter of 11 August arrived today and caused us much jubilation...an advance check on the NAL contract twice the size we had expected, news that you had sold "Roads" ["The Roads Must Roll"] for TV, and news of the Kellogg show [Tom Corbett, Space Cadet] for Space Cadet. Ginny and I are agreed that you are the original miracle man. All this adds up to no more real money worries for Robert and assurance that we can finish our house in an orderly fashion without a mortgage.
EDITOR'S NOTE: We moved into the house Labor Day weekend. It was closed in, glazed, but the clerestory needed to have the glass bricks installed, so we spent the weekend pushing oakum into the spaces around the glass bricks, "floating" them. I obtained a large roll of brown paper and stapled it to the wall studs. At least we had a place to live in. The subfloor was laid, but it would be a
The Heinleins' house at Colorado Springs. They had th'e house built themselves and ran into many difficulties-not the least being a shortage of building materials due to the war in Korea! long time before the house was finished. And Robert sat down and wrote The Puppet Masters.
September 13, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
We finally managed to get moved into our new house. It is far from finished; while the outer shell is closed in solid, the interior is a forest of studs and butcher paper temporary partitions. We do have plumbing and we do have kitchen fixtures and we do have heating; we'll make out.
I am still much badgered by bills, mechanics, unavoidable chores, and such, but I have a place to write and should now be able to continue at it fairly steadily.
February 11, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
...We managed to spend $6,000 in six days-which turns out to be awfully hard work. I have been trying to buy and get onto the job every bit of metal, every last stick of wood, needed to complete this house.
Incidentally, it just nicely cleaned us out again. The laughable price freeze [because of the wartime economy] came much too late to do a man who is building any good. But, with the material on hand, I now know that I can and will finish.
May 13, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
We put up the ceiling this past week; tomorrow we paint it and start putting up wall paneling. The house looks like an Okie camp, Sunday is the only day I can do paperwork as I have mechanics working both days and evenings. I put in about a fourteen-hour day each day and am gradually losing my bay window. Housebuilding is most impractical, but we are slowly getting results.
June 10, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
It is ten-thirty and I must be up around six. Today being Sunday I worked all day alone on the house. It continues to be an unending headache, but we are beginning to see the end-about another month if we don't run into more trouble. The biggest headache, now that the bank account is refreshed, is finding and keeping mechanics. This town is in a war building boom and every mechanic has his pick of many jobs. I should have four or five working; I have two, plus myself. I work at any trade which is missing at the moment. Fortunately, I can do most of the building trades myself, after a fashion. I have a stone mason doing cabinet work, which will give you some idea of the difficulties of getting help. Often I think of your comment, more than a year ago, that you hoped I would not have trouble but never knew of a case of a person building his own home who did not have lots of trouble. Well, we surely have had it, but the end is in sight-if I don't go off my rocker first.
What am I saying? I am off my rocker!
April 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Actually, I am not studying Arabic very much nor am I writing; I am moving massive boulders with pick and shovel and crowbar and block and tackle, building an irrigation dam-a project slightly smaller than the Great Pyramid but equal to Stonehenge. I no longer have any
"Project Stonehenge:" The creation of a decorative pool was undertaken by the Heinleins alone-and made them a two -- , wheelbarrow family. fat on my tummy at all but have a fine new collection of aches, pains, bruises, and scratches.
May 15, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
We are now a two-wheelbarrow family. That accounts for the delay.
Don't brush it off. Are you a two-wheelbarrow family? How many two-wheelbarrow families do you know? I mean to say: two-Cadillac families are common; there are at least twenty in our neighborhood, not counting Texans. But we are the only two-wheelbarrow family I know of.
It came about like this: I started building Ginny's irrigation dam. Simultaneously Ginny was spreading sheep manure, peat moss, gravel, etc., and it quickly appeared that every time she wanted the wheelbarrow I had it down in the arroyo-and vice versa. A crisis developed, which we resolved by going whole hog and phoning Sears for a second one. Now we are both happily round-shouldered all day long, each with his (her) own wheelbarrow.
(Live a little! Buy yourself a second one. You don't know what luxury is until you have a wheelbarrow all your own, not constantly being borrowed by your spouse.)
This dam thing (or damn' thing) I call (with justification) Project Stonehenge; it is the biggest civil engineering feat since the Great Pyramid. The basis of it is boulders, big ones, up to two or three tons each-and I move them into place with block and tackle, crowbar, pick and shovel, sweat, and clean Boy Scout living. Put a manila sling around a big baby, put one tackle to a tree, another to another tree, take up hard and tight with all my weight on each and lock them-then pry at the beast with a ninety-pound crowbar of the sort used to move freight cars by hand, gaining an inch at a time.