“Well, it looks like we need to order the new motor,” I tell my wife.

“Great,” she replies with dripping sarcasm. “I’ve been looking just in case, and I found one for about a third less,” she informs me, “It should get here next week if I order it today.”

“Go ahead,” I say, “I’ll put it mostly back together for now, then I’ll head out to the garage.”

“Would you check the porch first, please?” she requests, “We should get a package today or tomorrow.”

“Sure thing.”

As I look around this home I hate to love, I find myself tripping down memory lane.

We looked for over a year once we finally scraped together enough money for a down payment on a house. We had a long list of “perfect” features we wanted in our new place. Every weekend and many evenings we drove all over town, searching for the right combination of spacious and nice and affordable. Mostly we were leaning toward two or three stories with three-car garages and walkout basements, ideally on as large a lot as possible. Basically pie in the sky. Mostly they were out of our price range.

The ones we found in our price range got progressively scarier as the amount fell. I finally put a foot down and convinced Tellina we had no business even looking at homes in essentially a list of neighborhoods. I understood her drive; she held out hope against hope each one we looked at would be the fixer-upper we could be happy owning, three rules of real estate be damned.

Then we looked at this place. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with it. Compared with our tastes, it was plain vanilla. The neighborhood was nice, but the house itself didn’t tick off half the items on our list. It was all one level and without a basement, walk-out, or otherwise. It was fully carpeted, and Tellina’s allergies meant it all would have to go. It was just at the edge of affordability, and we would not be able to pay to have any work done for us.

We took this plain-looking house and turned it into something we could be happy living in.

Looking around and mentally cataloging, I see we have changed every floor surface, almost every wall surface, replaced every electrical outlet, every light fixture, every switch, and every appliance but the central air and heat. We didn’t do it to ‘flip’ the house, either. We did it to make it ours.

We succeeded.

Not only did we succeed, but we did it all by ourselves. Well, we didn’t, and couldn’t have actually hired anyone else to do it for us, at least. It’s a good thing we have some good friends.

“Nope, no package yet,” I yell from the front doorway. “I’ll be in the garage if you need anything!”

Along the way, we have found and fixed hidden water damage in two places. We found termite damage in three different places. The one in the kitchen eating area we had to brace the ceiling and remove then replace the whole lower half of the south wall. I remember stepping on the two by fours and watching them compress and bounce back as if they were made of sponge instead of wood. The termites had hollowed all those boards out to almost nothing left and none of it showed from the outside. Now, not only does nothing show from the outside, but I absolutely know it is sturdy, safe, and sound all the way through.

Unlike the damn kitchen floor. I searched and researched and figured out exactly how to lay tile correctly. Everything I discovered said the layers are sub-floor, then a base of portland cement, then backer board, then more portland cement, then tile, and finally the grout. So that’s exactly what we did. I had no idea all subfloors are not created equal. Everyone apparently assumes a subfloor is a layer of plywood or particleboard attached to the floor joists. Ours is old-style planks, which I think is much cooler in a lot of ways. I’m a big fan of solid wood versus thin pieces of wood glued together. Unfortunately, between the spaces separating the planks and the different flexing of boards right next to each other, it plays havoc with a tile floor. I really wish I could go back and just add a thin layer of plywood to tie it all together before all those other layers. The only way now is to tear it all out and start over again.

Now, where did I put that next light? Ah, there it is. My workbench is a mess. I need to put some clutter away before I get started.

Picking up the crackled remains of the iPad screen I am hoping I can replace, I can’t help but remember the old back door after a rock from mowing the lawn contacted it at a relatively high velocity.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

When the sliding glass back door shattered, Tellina wanted french doors installed instead. The difference was only a small amount of money, so we went to the hardware store and drove home with doors lashed into the back of the truck. Thank goodness we have friends willing to pitch in and help us when we need it. I remember seeing the storm clouds on the horizon and wondering if we were going to get done in time. When we found the termite damage there, I knew we wouldn’t.

Again, the damage was extensive and hidden. If it were just Tellina and I, tears would have flowed freely. Between my friends and the internet, we figured out what to do. By the time we were done and had the doors installed, we had replaced thirty feet of double two-by-twelve end joists and sill plate. I could not have told you what part of a house was a sill plate before then. I’d been around construction before, but never really had to pay much attention to what things are called. When it’s yours, the feelings about what you need to know and remember change, I guess. The desire to own tools also comes with it, for me, at least. I have my own set of house jacks because of that weekend. I’ve had to jack up the house three times now, and I need to do it a fourth.

We have cracks forming in places on the walls and ceiling. The pattern they’re forming is telling me the structure is settling unevenly. The laser level I thought I needed so long ago is finally going to earn its keep. I am going to end up jacking the house up again to shim it until it’s all level again. Is it weird that I am more than willing to tackle the entire task from start to finish all by myself?

I seem to have spent my life so far learning a passable bit about a wide range of topics. I wonder what it takes to qualify as a Jack-of-All-Trades? I can do general construction, electrical wiring, plumbing, electronics, auto mechanics, welding, landscaping, bricklaying, woodworking, carving… I feel like I am missing a bunch of things I am not remembering. Since I can do them all, does it mean I qualify? I am being honest with myself here, so I am thinking not. Despite the fact I have done all these things, I know I am no expert in any of them. Truly, I have mastered none.

Much like my work with coding, I realize.

I am getting myself depressed, here.

Shifting back to a positive gear, I remember the excitement we felt when we discovered hardwood floors under one bedroom’s carpet. We had the rest of the bedrooms down to bare wood by the end of the next day and would have stripped the rest of the house, had any of it been hardwood floored also. We didn’t let the decent carpet we pulled up go to waste, either. Tellina’s grandmother got to replace the old shag carpets of her bedrooms with a nice, beige pile. It took her a while to get used to not having a gold shag in her bedroom, and all the bedrooms being the same color also threw her a bit, we think.

I remember renting drum sanders and edgers, then staying up all night long to have the equipment turned back in by eight o’clock the next morning, for each room. Then came polyurethane to seal it all up. Every bedroom now has between seven and nine coats of the clear coating, sanded between each and every layer to bond firmly and permanently.

We weren’t afraid to tackle nearly anything, no matter whether we knew what we were doing or not. To be truthful with myself, we mostly didn’t know what we were doing.

By far the most dangerous, most stupid, and most illegal thing I did was during the great power outage. We had no power at all for days. Something like 95% of the city was completely black at one point. So what did I do then? Why, swap out the fuse box for a circuit breaker panel, of course. I can still remember the fear I felt for those thick utility wires as I moved as quickly as I could to put the new box in place before the power came back on. It was two o’clock in the morning and I just knew some idiot was going to spike their generator power down the line, or worse, our whole neighborhood would get power back in the middle of me touching one of those massive lines. I had to sit and calm myself for quite a while in the nearly complete darkness when I could finally take my hands away from the main breaker. I took my time getting the rest of the circuits wired and connected correctly.

Yet with all this work and effort, with all these changes both cosmetic and structural, I feel like there is so much more to do.

It is overwhelming.

I need to replace and paint a bunch of siding since that thrice-cursed woodpecker decided a whole corner of the house needed holes. Lots of holes. I could understand if there were insects infesting the area or something? No such excuse. I have no idea what his major problem was, I’m just glad he left.

The backyard fence is falling down. It’s chain-link, which I dislike, and I would far rather replace it with wood. If I could have my dream come true, I’d replace it with stone, to be truthful. Such is most certainly dreaming, since I can’t even afford to build with only wood. Even if I do all the work myself, as I most certainly would.

The driveway is cracking. We can’t afford to do anything there, either. Certainly not the cut flagstones I would love to lay down instead of concrete. In the ideal place of my fantasy mind, I have taken the bricks off the facade and used them to trim the driveway and sidewalks, while replacing the surfaces and sides of the house with quarried stone.

One of my other frequent fantasies begins to intrude now. The one where I have access to advanced nanotechnology and I use it in a personal capacity to improve our home.

Most of the workbench is clear again. I really want to work on this LED project, but the shattered iPad screen reminds me I have put off finishing it for far too long. Tellina saved up for a long time to buy the expensive device. Seeing again the look on her face when she dropped it, I know which to choose. I absolutely hate to see her tears.

With a sigh, I start assembling the tools and parts I’ll need. I think I’ll put on a podcast while I work. I’ll also need to figure out where in the process I left off. Now, where was I?