Saturday, August 2, 2008

BF woman has a knack for solo building projects

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Bosque Farms Sarah Knight was not like most little girls growing up in northern New Mexico. Instead of playing with dolls and having tea parties, Knight was building wooden sidewalks in front of her parents' home and watching construction workers do their jobs.

Knight isn't your typical 59-year-old wife and mother — she's a woman who, when she wants something done, she does it herself. Whether it's building a new addition to her house, laying a concrete sidewalk or erecting a chain link fence around her property in Bosque Farms, Knight isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. In fact, she enjoys it.

"I've always been this way, since I was a little girl," said Sarah Knight as she sits at her kitchen table covered in pictures of her latest projects. "It's like a challenge for me whether I can do it or not."

And for the most part, she can and has.

Knight, a retired school bus driver, has lived in Bosque Farms with her husband, Tim, for about 32 years. Since moving to Valencia County, Knight has single-handedly transformed their property and their home into everything she ever wanted and more.

From installing a permanent foundation underneath her house and installing Sheetrock to redoing all the electricity in her house and mounting a new bay window, Knight is known to her family and friends as the do-it-yourself queen. She says her interest in construction began when she was a little girl growing up in Las Vegas, N.M.

"My mom would send me to school on time, but my teacher would always put on my report card that I was late," Knight remembered. "I used to stop and watch the men do construction. They would wonder what a little girl was doing standing there watching them. I was watching to see how they would do things and what they used."

Not only would Knight watch and learn, she would draw pictures of the house she one day wanted to build for herself. She recently found one of those pictures during a visit with her mom.

As the years went by, Knight's interest in building grew. No matter where she went, whether it was at a friend's house or even to the zoo, Knight would look and study construction and get ideas for what she wanted to implement at her own home.

Without any formal construction schooling or training, Knight takes a lot of pride in her work. She says her hands-on lifestyle is what keeps her young and fit.

"Everyone always asks me why I don't do this professionally," she said. "For some reason, I feel guilty if I do it for someone else and I mess up. It has to be a certain way or I'm not happy with it. It's a hobby — I enjoy it. It's like therapy."

While Knight is constantly busy working on new construction projects around her house, it's a different story when it comes to her husband, Tim. Even though he works full-time at the railroad, he admits that he just gets in the way when he tries to help his wife. He said the only time he'll help her is when she needs assistance in lifting something heavy.

"For some reason, we don't click in a construction environment — we clash," Tim Knight said. "I'll do my thing and let her do hers until something comes along like heavy labor, and then I'll assist. But most of the time, I just let her do what she's going to do. That way, we keep peace in the family. She's actually doing what men do for a living."

Tim does sometimes get nervous when he's at work, knowing that his wife is working so hard and sometimes in dangerous circumstances.

"I'm scared to death that I'm going to come home and find her in some kind of predicament like some kind of fall or an electrocution," he said.

While she understands his concern for her safety, he is very proud of his wife and has even bought her several "How-to" books.

"My husband would always say he was sick and tired of coming home because he didn't know if he was going to find the front door where the back door should be," Knight said. "One day he told me I was sick — that I had a building sickness."

Even though Knight's endurance isn't where it was years ago, she's still determined to get the work done — no matter how long it takes. She said it's all about willpower and the desire to finish a project.

"I want to do more than I can," she said. "Before, I used to do more, and sometimes I get disappointed with myself because I can't do as much as I did before."

Proud of his wife and her efforts, Tim Knight says Sarah is an inspiration and demonstrates that people of her age can still do anything they want. He said people should take notice and realize that retirement is a time to do all the things they ever wanted to do — and more.

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