Seventies Sweetheart: From Breakup to Billionaire-Chapter 151: Building a New House

"Sell! Fifth Uncle is helping supervise the house renovation, it won’t delay us selling spicy noodles. Renovating the house will cost a lot, I need to save up some more before the New Year."

Coming out of Fifth Uncle’s house, Lin Xiang went to the brigade headquarters to talk to the brigade leader about building the house.

"Your house has some years on it, indeed you should renovate it. How big do you plan to build this time?"

"It’s just me and my mom at home now. My brother has gone to the army and probably won’t be coming back, so building a big house is unnecessary. Just three rooms. I’m grown, so I need my own room, leave a small room for my brother to stay in when he’s on leave, and when he’s not back, we’ll use it as a storage room. Also, the kitchen needs to be built."

It’s just adding one more room to the existing structure, the original land registry is sufficient, no additional land registry approval is needed.

This saves quite a bit of hassle.

The brigade leader handed the approval letter to Lin Xiang, "Are you hiring villagers to build the house?"

Lin Xiang smiled shyly, "I don’t know anything about house construction, and my mom doesn’t know much either, so we entrusted Fifth Uncle to supervise. But the laborers definitely have to be from our brigade, though I might not be able to pay high wages."

"What wages? Providing two oily meals a day is enough."

In the village, when houses are built, it’s basically labor exchange, no one’s heard of anyone paying wages.

Lin Xiang doesn’t have the clout others have to simply ask villagers to help with construction for free, so some wages must be given.

But if wages are given, then only one meal needs to be provided, and it doesn’t have to be too good, just filling up to eighty percent is fine.

Lin Xiang discussed this with Fifth Uncle after returning home.

Fifth Uncle thought it over, "I could find a few people from the family to build the house, they don’t need wages, just meals. But if you want to move in before the New Year, a few people aren’t enough, you’ll still need to find villagers, which means paying wages."

Whether or not to give wages, the meal standards differ.

If the Lin Family really differentiates, they’ll end up offending a bunch of people.

So Lin Xiang and Fifth Uncle decided to pay wages and provide one simple meal.

"Do we need to find someone to cook then?"

Fifth Aunt glared at her, "I’m just sitting at home with nothing to do, why spend extra money?"

"But we need to carefully discuss these wages. No one’s heard of paying wages for building a house, if it’s too low, the villagers might gossip, if it’s too high, we suffer a loss."

Lin Xiang knew even less about this, so in the end, it was Fifth Uncle who made the decision.

"Unskilled workers, three dimes a day, skilled workers, five dimes a day."

"Girl, your family only needs three rooms and a kitchen, plus a toilet. Estimate it takes ten laborers, the house can be erected in at most ten days."

Lin Xiang frowned slightly, "Ten days..."

It seemed a bit too long.

Fifth Uncle quickly said, "Don’t worry, I will supervise them properly, certainly won’t let them slack off. No way will you spend an extra dime on wages."

Lin Xiang knew Fifth Uncle misunderstood her, quickly explaining, "Fifth Uncle, that’s not what I meant. After the new house is erected, it needs to air out for a few days before we can move in, the New Year is approaching, I don’t want to delay too long. How about this, we find more people to shorten the construction time?"

It’s not impossible.

"Then during the construction days, you and your mom move to my house. Your Fifth Uncle and Dong Sheng can sleep together, I’ll share a room with Chunya, we’ll clear out one for you."

Lin Xiang felt a bit embarrassed, "Fifth Aunt, wouldn’t this be too much trouble?"

Fifth Aunt rolled her eyes at Lin Xiang, "Look at you, getting all polite with Fifth Aunt? Now go pack your things at home, then let your Fifth Uncle go find people, let’s save some time."

The Lin household doesn’t have much, though it’s a pity Lin Yun chopped a room full of firewood before going to the army, and it rained on it all last night, currently unusable.

Fifth Uncle, a man of action, went out to find people as soon as the things were packed.

He returned just before lunch, holding a list, "Girl, these are the workers I found, see what you think."

Lin Xiang glanced at the list, many names were unfamiliar to her.

She handed it over to Mrs. Lin beside her.

"Old Five did his best," said Mrs. Lin, "About building the house, leaving it to him, we both feel at ease."

Lin Xiang gave the prepared eight banknotes to Fifth Uncle.

"Fifth Uncle, take this eighty yuan first, deduct for bricks and wages from it. If it’s not enough, let me know later."

After discussing with Mrs. Lin, Lin Xiang decided to build a blue brick house first.

Though the cost difference between building a blue brick house and a red brick house is only about twenty yuan, this sum isn’t a significant expense for the Lin Family now, but the mother and daughter both agreed, as long as there’s a shelter from the wind and rain, it’s fine.

Building a red brick house right away might flaunt wealth, making villagers envious.

They are, after all, a mother and daughter alone, somewhat unsafe.

"Okay. Every expense, Fifth Uncle will record for you, ensuring you don’t spend a penny unnecessarily."

After lunch, Fifth Uncle called a few close hometown brothers, and went to the neighboring commune’s brickyard to buy bricks.

Lin Xiang knew nothing about house construction, she could only make a circle at the construction site each day after returning from the market.

At this time, there were no blueprints for building houses, it was all based on the workers’ own knowledge, not to say very pretty, but definitely sturdy enough to live in for over ten years without a problem.

Watching her family’s originally dilapidated house being razed, and a new house being constructed, it was indescribable.

"Girl’s here." Fifth Aunt noticed Lin Xiang, handing her a bowl filled with rice and dishes: "Just back from the market, haven’t eaten yet, right? Here’s some leftover from the workers’ lunch, have a bite."

"Thank you, Fifth Aunt." Lin Xiang didn’t stand on ceremony, gulping down the food.

Lin Xiang’s lifestyle wasn’t too bad, she deliberately gave Fifth Aunt money and meat tickets, letting her buy the freshest pork from the meat company every day, half a pound to six ounces of pork each day, plus more oil, braising into a big pot, the aroma was incredible.

Finishing her meal, Lin Xiang looked around for Fifth Uncle, finally spotting him on the roof setting tiles.

"How come Fifth Uncle is working too?"

"What else would he do? Just sit around staring if someone didn’t work? Your Fifth Uncle is also a skilled hand at building houses, no matter whose house is being built, they invite him to exchange labor. Since sitting idle achieves nothing, might as well work."

Lin Xiang was just about to respond when she suddenly heard Aunt Lin yelling loudly.