Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Common House construction sequencing

[Margaret Weatherly (martiew]

We have the same experience at Liberty Village. We are half built and
are using a large room in one of our homes as a temporary community
room. Our schedule is full of weekly lunches, weekly dinners, Friday
night soup, team meetings, community events, open houses, individual
get-togethers and breakfasts and we are always planning more. Martie
Weatherly, Liberty Village, Frederick, MD

Lynn Nadeau wrote:
> 
> Chuck Durrett wrote:
> 
> >when the common house goes in late, people give it
> >less attention. If people have settled back into the habit of reading the
> >paper at home after dinner, forget making the sitting room comfortable and
> >cozy and expecting to hang around there after dinner...The common house
> becomes an
> >afterthought or looks like it is, attention is pulled away and old habits
> >are not altered.
> 
> I agree with the thrust of Chuck's full post: that there are many
> wonderful aspects, and use-reinforcing ones, in having a common house
> built first, or simultaneously with homes. It's great to have a haven
> while constructing and moving in. But our experience at RoseWind, a
> lot-development model which necessitated building the CH after two thirds
> of the homes were built and occupied-- years later, in some cases--
> suggests that doom and gloom is not assured if you need to do a CH later.
> 
> At RoseWind we have so looked forward to having a common house, for
> years. For years we built community in programming, designing, and to
> quite an extent building it ourselves. Some of us, with our homes all
> settled, had time and energy to do that work, and with many of us on
> site, it was easy to get lots of volunteers, even on minutes notice, to
> help with construction and finishing tasks.
> 
> After only five months' use (in our 13th year as a community) we now have
> weekly potlucks, team-cooked meals, and patio parties. We've met almost
> weekly for discussion circles, as well as having our business and many of
> our committee meetings there. There have been wine-and-cheese tasting,
> singing, political-sharing meetings, communication workshops, meetings of
> member's clubs such as bicycle club, meditation group, Green Party,
> choral rehearsal; birthday parties, family reunions, and other "personal"
> socials; an Autumnal Seasonal Observance; regularly scheduled RoseWind
> book-discussion group; planned Thanksgiving Dinner; a marvelous Sunday
> brunch. Planning-team work for a Town Meeting, speakers and slide shows
> and videos on a range of topics, as well as drop-in use to pick up mail
> and chat, for ping pong, magazine and Sunday-paper sharing, kid play.
> Every month sees more and more uses. It's exciting, even while we still
> are short on big pots, landscaping, and book shelves. It's been easy to
> find people to be on cleaning teams for various areas, and to find people
> willing to try cooking for a crowd. Much of the furniture and equipment
> has been donated from people's homes.
> 
> So yes, by all means build your common  house first if you can. But if
> not, celebrate mightily when you can finally use it and have a ball: we
> are!
> 
> Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
> Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
> http://www.rosewind.org
> http://www.ptguide.com
> 
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