After an entire school year of work, Mr. Wolter and his construction classes of 25 students have almost completed building a house. Two classes, each one a block of two hours, started building in September.
According to Senior Tommy Starr, who has been in the class both semesters this year, the most enjoyable part of construction is “being next to Mr. Wolter everyday and learning something new.” Starr originally signed up for the class because he thought it would be easy, but after nine months says that his opinion changed. “It’s a challenge every day I show up and participate,” he said.
The house is a two level home with three bedrooms, one bathroom and a two car garage, or “a one truck garage,” as Senior Jacob Nerud described it. The house also features tile flooring, retaining walls, a patio and a deck. Senior Joey VanBoxel said that the deck, which overlooks the infamous Cannon Pool Hill, is his favorite part of the house. The outside has a combination of siding and brick. According to Starr, putting up the brick on the house was his favorite part of the project.
Seniors Dave Silva and Cody Gentry said that oftentimes the most challenging parts of building the house were the projects that were the most time consuming. For Silva, it was putting up the walls and drywall; for Gentry it was staining the wood.
However, according to Gentry, the hard work paid off in the end; he says that he is proud of the knowledge he gained of how to build a house, he even plans to return during the summer to help Mr. Wolter with some of the final finishing touches. He recommends taking the course to underclassmen, just advises them to “make sure they dress warm during the winter.” VanBoxel also commented on how it was sometimes pretty miserable in the winter, but fellow senior Justin Regenscheid said his solution to beating the cold was to just stand around the heater.
As the countdown is on until graduation, it is also on for the number of days left of work on the house for the Mr. Wolter’s classes. Silva said that overall, he’s gained a lot of knowledge from the class and is glad he was able to participate in it. Starr said that he is taking away pride in “just knowing that I helped build something really beautiful.”