Residential changes in Baifo Village, Shijiazhuang
In the early days of liberation in Baifo Village on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang City, the vast majority of villagers lived in adobe houses. Some people who live in difficulty cannot afford to build adobe houses, so they live in houses with boards and walls, that is, the walls are made of earth. A layer of straw is laid on the roof, and a layer of mud is pressed on top of the straw. During the rainy season, the mud on the roof is washed away. To prevent the house from leaking, another layer of mud is put down the next year. Usually when I stand on a house and look around, I see that the roofs of every house look like patches of thatched grass.
People who live a better life build brick houses, that is, the outer layer of the wall is lined with vertical bricks, and the inside of the bricks is lined with blanks.
The blanking is usually in the autumn. After the wheat is planted, farm work is no longer busy and the rainy season is over. People who want to build houses in the next year start laying the groundwork. The soil used to make the bricks is dug in the individual's land, and the ground is poured with water. After the water seeps down, the soil in the ground can be dug when it is neither wet nor dry. People without land can also buy clay to make bricks. The size of the punched blank is 1.25 feet (40 cm) long, 6 inches (20 cm) wide, and 3 inches (10 cm) thick.
When building a house, those who live a wealthy life will ask a Feng Shui master to look at the homestead. The geographical location and auspicious days for building a house. If the north house is built this year, the east and west houses cannot be built. If the east and west wings are built this year, the north room cannot be built. If you want to cover it, you have to "steal it", that is, when you put on the red purlin, you have to put it on when the sun is not out. The red purlin is usually the second purlin from the front, and the purlin has the words "upper beam" written on it in red paper. Good luck" or "Jiang Taigong is here, the gods abdicate." Generally, the beam is raised at noon, and cannons are fired while the beam is raised, which means to drive away evil spirits.
When a house is being built, everyone with the same surname as the head of the family goes to work. If the conditions of the households building the houses are good, they can take care of people's food. If the conditions of the households building the houses are poor, then the people who help will go home to eat.
The width of the house depends on the size of its foundation. If you build a north house and the east-west length is enough to be three feet long, the three rooms you build will be exactly three feet long and are called big three doors. If they are not accurate enough, they will be called big three doors. Small three-room houses are generally built with beams of 1.35 feet (4.5 meters). Wealthier households also use beams of 1.5 feet (5 meters). Of course, the depth of the house is larger.
Generally, three rooms are built. If there are two generations, two walls are broken. According to tradition, the east side is the big one and the west side is the small one. So the old man lives in the east suite and the son lives in the west suite. In the middle is the nave. If two generations could not break a wall, such a house would be called one light and one dark.
Generally, no matter the conditions are good or bad, when building a house, a door opening must be built. If the door opening opens from north to south, the east and west wings can be built, or only the east wing and not the west wing can be built. You cannot build only the west room but not the east wing. The pigsty is located in the southwest corner of the yard. If the doorway opens from east to west, the west wing should be built instead of the east wing, and the pigsty should be placed in the southeast corner of the yard. If the doorway opens from west to east, build the east wing rather than the other wing, and set the pigsty in the southwest corner.
The kangs were built on the front wall of the north house along the windows. Because they had no money to buy coal, they always burned the kangs before going to bed at night. That is to say, make a hole in the side wall of the kang, put firewood on it when it is cold, and stop burning it when it is not cold.
After the liberation, it became fashionable to build a coal fire in the middle of the front of the kang. The coal fire was connected with the kang. When the coal fire was lit in winter, the kang would be hot.
When building houses before liberation and in the early days of the founding of New China, a kiln was built on the screen wall at the street entrance to worship the Earth God. If some families have a scholar, there is no need to worship the Earth God. It is said that the scholar and the Earth God are equal. In addition to worshiping the Earth God, people also worship the Zaohuo God.
In the 1960s, one-two walls became popular, that is, laying bricks sideways, also called running bricks, and building a blank wall inside the running brick wall. This kind of wall also has certain advantages, because the wall is thick , so we live warm in winter and cool in summer. Some houses with better conditions will build three rooms with four beams and eight columns. The four beams means there is a beam on the front and rear walls and on the two broken gables. Eight pillars separate three rooms, with one pillar in each corner. This kind of house is very strong. The beams and columns are all riveted, making it a relatively earthquake-proof house.
In the 1970s, two-four walls became popular again, that is, the walls were all made of bricks and the wall thickness was 24 centimeters.
In 1985, some villagers in Baifo Village built two-story single-sided buildings. There are three rooms on each floor, 10.5 meters long from east to west. The depth of the first floor is 6.5 meters. Since the balcony on the second floor occupies 1.5 meters, the depth of the second floor is 5 meters. Most of the stairs are located outside the building to the east. wall place.
By 1990, people were not satisfied with single-sided two-story buildings, so some houses built double-sided buildings. The east-west length is still 10.5 meters as planned by the village committee, but the depth has increased from 6.5 meters to 10 meters or 11 meters. There is a corridor in the building, with unit rooms on both sides of the corridor, which are divided into living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. Most of the stairs are located in the building, some in the middle of the building and some on the side of the building. Some pay attention to decoration and hang a large mural on the front wall of the living room, with a large ornate chandelier on the top and wall lamps on the wall. Some of the floors are made of terrazzo, some are paved with floor tiles, and a few households are paved with carpets. It can be said that: upstairs and downstairs, there are electric lights and telephones, the walls are bright, and every house is picturesque.