My Story

The Drafting Girl

"Choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life!"

Ever since I can remember I have had a love of houses! Playing dollhouse as a child rarely consisted of actually playing with the dolls but rather, rearranging their furniture and adding cardboard additions to their home. My family wasn’t the type that could afford a “Barbie Playhouse” so I built one out of cardboard boxes, complete with a multi-level roof deck and cardboard furniture! There is an old photo of it out there somewhere and one day I hope I find it again!

As a young child, I remember hanging upside down on furniture, studying the ceilings of the different homes of friends and family. I would pretend I could walk on the ceilings. Little did I realize then that I was studying floor plans, the traffic flow and the arrangements of a house. I would start to think how I wanted to change some of the features in those homes!

I remember exploring old houses from the 1700 and 1800’s and laying on the floor with friends to look out what we called “belly windows." These are windows built into the kneewalls, close to the floor, on the upper level of the home. I’m not sure if we coined that term since I have never found reference to them when I googled “belly windows.” I developed a love and appreciation of old homes. I would imagine the people that may have lived there and how they lived. This is our connection to the past. It proves we are all the same, we just have different tools, different clothes, and new ways of adapting our homes to the way we live.

At the ripe old age of 8, I can remember scouring the real estate ads in the newspaper and helping my aunt find a rental for her family and helping my parents to find a home to purchase. I also remember making my friends run around with me to tour the houses that were being built nearby and also to run around peeking in the windows of the homes in the “rich” neighborhoods. One home, that I’ll never forget peering into, is one where I saw a grandmother with her grandchildren. They were playing on the hardwood floor of their family room and the windows in that room went from floor to ceiling. I was mesmerized, stood staring, and we got caught. The woman invited us in for milk and cookies. We had a nice conversation and she told us we could come back whenever we wanted. As far as I know we never went back, but many years later while I was playing with my own children on the floor of my family room, I suddenly realized I had recreated that room in my own house! (I do not recommend peering into strangers’ homes to copy this method of design)

I also spent many years of my childhood drawing house plans for imaginary families! I would shake the dice to determine how many children these families would have and then decide how many bedrooms they would need and design their homes accordingly. I still have notebooks filled with these impractical designs!

I had my first “professional job" at the age of 14 where I redesigned my parents’ kitchen. (Although they never paid me for the work). The kitchen was remodeled according to my plans. My mother informed the contractor that the drawings were done by a 14-year-old so if there was anything that needed adjusting to let her know. The joke was that no one realized there were no drawers called out on the design. We had all cabinets with no drawers!

I will never forget the day I came home from school to find my father eagerly waiting for me. He had a brochure he had received in the mail that described a new school called “Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School” He told me “I think you would like this school.” I kept reading and rereading the brochure and despite a few teachers and counselors telling me I was “too smart for a trade school” I was determined to go there!

To say I loved this school would be an understatement! With every trade I explored I fell more in love with houses and what I could learn about designing them. When it came time to choose the shop I would like to major in at Minuteman I chose “Drafting.” One of the school officials came to me to tell me that “Drafting was not an option as a shop but rather was an academic class” I told him that drafting was the reason I came to this school. So without any further discussion they arranged for me to major in “Commercial Art” (now commonly called graphic art) in the morning and drafting classes in the afternoon. I was allowed to explore drafting as related to architecture as the teacher and I saw fit.

Slowly other students joined me in the drafting shop until we were all allowed to spend the entire school day in drafting. The year after I graduated Drafting became an official shop to major in. I was proud of what I started at this school! I was also grateful for my training in Commercial Art since it proved to be helpful with presentations and design principles.

However, I was told that “as a woman in the architectural field we don’t know where you would fit in” and I was placed in “mechanical drafting” co-op jobs in my junior and senior years. I'm not sure why they felt mechanical was a better option. I didn’t love it, but it was a job that gave me professional experience and connections in the drafting field.

After high school I was accepted at Wentworth Institute of Technology to study Architectural Enginering. My parents and I could not afford traditional college programs, but things have a way of working out for the best. Looking back, I know that is not the part of architecture I would have enjoyed. I continued to work full time in the mechanical drafting field and my dream of being an architect took a back seat.

When I became pregnant with my first child I decided I wanted to work from home. I had some freelance mechanical drafting jobs and set up a home office long before home offices were “a thing.” (During the covid pandemic I looked back and wondered how I ever got the idea I could work from home, and I realized I could credit “Mike Brady” from the Brady Bunch!)

I took this time and found opportunities to take different classes related to my field. I enrolled in a “Drafting Certificate Program" at the Lowell Institute School at M.I.T to prove to the world I was qualified to be trusted with their projects. Slowly my freelance jobs changed from mechanical to architectural when I moved to a new area and met builders that needed plans drawn. It was a little of "trade school experience" and “learning as we go” for me. I wanted to dive into the building code and enrolled in a class that prepared you for the Massachusetts Unrestricted Construction Supervisor License. I found myself in a class of 25 men and the instructor asked me, “May I ask what you do in the construction field” I told him I was a designer and he felt I wouldn’t qualify to take the CSL exam. But I did qualify based on my trade school experience and years in design. I passed the difficult exam on my first try.

I remember a teacher once told me “As a woman in a man’s field you can write your own ticket.” …and that I did! I am forever grateful that I could be my own boss, running my own business, as I raised my children.

My father had always told my sisters and me to choose a job you love since you will spend a lot of time at work. I think of him every time I hear one of my favorite sayings: "Choose a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life!" I still feel like I'm playing with doll houses all day, but instead of cardboard I use a digital format!

I am forever grateful for all the builders, engineers, and other designers, who loved to talk about their projects. I would absorb every word I could and still do! I am also thankful to those who nurtured my love of architecture, especially my parents, and believed that a woman could succeed in a traditionally male dominated field.

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Brenda Michienzi currently resides in Massachusetts with her husband of 45 years. Together they raised 5 children and are enjoying their 4 grandchildren!

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