T. Valley Building Trades Open House Set For May 19
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
AKRON – With less than three weeks until the open house, Tippecanoe Valley High School Building Trades students are working away on the house. This year’s home is being built for Gary and Tammy Shepherd at 12826 S. CR 750W, Akron. The open house is from 1 to 4 p.m. May 19. According to Building Trades instructor Wes Backus during a tour Monday afternoon, the total size of the home is approximately 6,500 square feet. The ground floor and basement each are more than 2,800 square feet, with an attached garage of 809 square feet. There are four total bedrooms. Two “spare” bedrooms and the master bedroom are upstairs, with an additional bedroom downstairs. The spare bedrooms have a Jack ’N’ Jill bathroom with separate vanities. The bedrooms share a shower and toilet. The master bedroom has a walk-in closet and a master bathroom. That bathroom features a Jacuzzi® tub and walk-in shower. The bedrooms upstairs and the kitchen all have doors to the wrap-around porch. The covered porch is 1,300 square feet. Backus said the porch wraps around from the garage at the front of the house to the spare bedrooms in the back of the house. The back of the house faces CR 1450E. The porch doesn’t go around the attached garage, and the spare bedroom nearest the garage has its own little porch. The porch also features can lights and multiple outlets. A half bathroom is near the kitchen. The home also features a big dining room, and a study room with skylight. Rooms in the basement also include a game room, a bar/kitchen area and a family room. Another full bathroom is next to the theater room. On the other side of the basement are closets, the furnace room and a mechanical room for the water heaters and all water systems. The last room is the “sports” room. The basement also features a walk-out door. According to information from Tippecanoe Valley Superintendent Brett Boggs, the home is heated and cooled by an open loop geothermal system. Backus has a morning and an afternoon class working on the house. Each class gets about two hours a day on average to work on the house. Seniors Tanner Hobbs and Bryce Gibbons are Backus’ only second-year students. Hobbs said he enjoyed wiring the house most this year. “I’m good at it, I guess,” he said. The house last year didn’t have siding, it was stucco, Hobbs said, so this year the students learned how to do it. “It’s pretty easy. It wasn’t bad,” Hobbs said. Besides tasks like siding, he said he’s learned that “Everyone has to work together. If not, the house won’t get done.” His favorite thing about the house was its square footage. “It’s big. Bigger than last year’s house,” he said. Gibbons said his duties varied from framing to running lots of wires, outlets, switches and putting in doors and windows. He also found the siding was easy, and enjoyed having a bigger house to build. “There’s not as much standing around time,” Gibbons said. He plans to go to college to be an electrician, he said, so Building Trades is providing some experience in that area. “You have to work with people your whole life so you’ve got to get used to it sometime,” Gibbons said. He encouraged people to come out to the open house May 19. “Just to see what we’ve done in a school year’s time and see how far along this house has come,” Gibbons said. To reach the Shepherd home for the open house, take Ind. 114 east of Akron approximately 3 miles to the Rock Lake Road (CR 1425E). Turn left (north) and travel 1.8 miles to CR 1450E. turn left (north) on CR 1450E and go another 0.2 of a mile to the home, on the west side of the road.
