BUILDING TRADES HOUSE TO BE ON DISPLAY

Senior Billy Cobb removed bedroom doors to trim them so they open smoothly across off-white carpet at the house students built at 2432 Melrose.

The four-bedroom, three-bath house built by students enrolled in the building trades course at the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School is nearly complete and ready to be sold.

An open house will be held Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The minimum bid is $131,000.

Cobb, a student from Scott City High School, carefully carried a door down the hallway towards a saw. "It's a good house," he said. "It surprised me that students could get together and do this good of a job."

Bringing the students together for a two-year project is instructor Bud Thompson. "We started from the ground up," he said. During the first year, students learned to lay concrete, set up exterior walls and floor joists, interior walls and the roof.

The second year students did interior work like installing ceramic tile, painting, putting up baseboard trim and hanging cabinets and doors.

The house features a great room, formal dining room, and three of the four bedrooms on the main floor. The fourth bedroom, a bath and a family room are in the walkout basement.

The house also has a two-car garage; a large, screened back patio; a security system and an intercom system. All the bathrooms have ceramic tile, and the master bathroom has a whirlpool bath. The exterior of the house has a brick front. The other three sides have vinyl siding.

"We would put this against any other spec house in town," Thompson said. "We think the quality meets or exceeds the normal quality standards."

Students do almost all the work. They are closely supervised, and when they make a mistake, they have to do the job over again until it is right.

Eric Stiegemeyer, a senior from Jackson, installed light fixtures and electrical receptacles in the basement. He already has had four job offers and more keep coming. He is looking for the best company offering the best salary when he graduates.

As he fitted the screws into the plate, Stiegemeyer said he plans to be an electrician for the rest of his life.

Cobb, the student finishing bedroom doors, plans to go to college and become an engineer. When he isn't hanging doors, he is in a classroom studying algebra, geometry and senior English. The vocational course helped him get a summer job. And Cobb is sure his hands-on experience will pay off in his engineering career.

In addition to the building trades class, students from the vocational school's heating and refrigeration class put in the heating and cooling systems. Students in the horticulture program did the landscaping. The drafting class worked on house plans, and the offset printing class printed brochures for the open house.

For more information call the vocational school at 334-0826.