This is the story of my house. It needs fixing. Maybe it needs to be torn down. Maybe I should abandon it and build a tiny house. Maybe I should move into one of my travel trailers. Or into a new trailer. Maybe I should move into my 2-room + storeroom/no bathroom little house next door. Maybe I should go live full-time in my vintage 1962 trailer sitting in one of the last throwback trailer parks in the City of Los Angeles. Maybe I should move somewhere completely different. Maybe I should build a miniature golf course on the lots north of the little house next door and make some money. And a name for myself. So many options! So little money. So few hard DIY skills. Well, you heard it here. I’ve got to do something. This is my shout-out to the universe and anyone who’s reading this that the clock starts now!
This old, dilapidated, stick-built relic of a house that my two great grandfathers built sits bravely right off a two-lane state highway running through a remote area of Eastern Montana. It’s on the edge of what some would call “nowhere,” but there is a town here (population ~96). I’ve got roots here, and I own a whole block and then some.
The house has been in my family for four generations. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is falling apart at the seams. Quite literally. I mean, you can feel the wind and see daylight in places where some of the corners don’t line up any more. I love it, I’m embarrassed by it, I’m fiercely proud of it, it depresses me, it makes me cry, it makes me laugh. I am going to fix it or leave it or both.
Things are going to change.
My wife grew up in West Texas. There is nothing there except oil. It is an ugly place.
Many leave when they finish school but many return. Why? Because it is home.