Tool Girl Again: Why Rescue Houses?

I was trying to explain to a friend why I would spend a year and a half plus a tidy chunk of money renovating my wonderful but very, very neglected mid-century modern house, and then decide to sell it when I finish. 

"It's the project," I said. "I can't resist a good renovation project."

That was a weak answer, and my friend knew it. She gave me one of those you-are-crazy-but-I'm-fond-of-you-anyway looks, and changed the subject. 

So what is it about building/renovation projects that has me hooked? As I've written recently, I've clearly got a "Jones" for this work: I've finished, built, or renovated three houses in the past six years. That despite basically never picking up a tool more complicated than a screwdriver or a spade until I was in my late 50s. And only then because the guy who could design and build anything died of brain cancer before he finished our house. 

That man, the one I loved with my whole heart, my late husband, Richard Cabe, was the quintessential tool guy. He owned hundreds of them, both power and hand. He could (and did) sculpt a firepit out of a one-ton granite boulder, design and build his own hand-operated crane, hoist the roof beam of our house using just ropes and pulleys, build anything with his own hands, and also out-fox an opposing lawyer as an economic expert witness. He was just that brilliant.

A boy and his tools: Richard adjusting the load-carrying beam on his gantry–hand-powered crane–after he set in place the 450-pound sandstone block that became the sculptural base for our mailbox. He had just had one brain surgery then, and would have another set of brain tumors removed in a few weeks. None of which deterred him from sculpting–or climbing ladders. 

I used to say Richard could design his way out of a paper bag–only he would build a better bag first. 

While he was alive, I never considered myself capable of conceiving, repairing, or restoring structures. I could design a landscape or restore a stream, yes. But build? No. Then Richard died, and out of sheer financial necessity, I had to finish both our house and his hundred-year-old studio building. Soon. Or lose them both in the morass of post-cancer bills. 

Thanks to patient friends (that's you, especially, Maggie and Tony Niemann!) and knowledgeable trades-folk, I learned to use tools, to hang doors and trim windows, to frame doorways and build counters, and to envision the way buildings work (or don't). In the doing, I learned that while I'm not a great carpenter like Richard was, much less a sculptor, I do enjoy and find satisfaction in the process of solving design challenges of light and space and color and form, of materials and tolerances, of construction and restoration.

What precisely do I love about that process? Something deeper than only design: "Here is this neglected space with badly-designed, old windows that leak. What can I do with it?" It's more the challenge of learning the place well enough to hear its voice, to ask, "What do you have to offer? How can I facilitate that?"

As with my office in the photos below. I saw the paint colors right away; adding bookshelves to the walls, and insulation to the attic were also a no-brainers. But it took me over a year to hear that what that window-bay needed was not just new windows, but windows in proportion to the ones in the rest of the house, with a built-in seat below.  

The north-facing "sunroom" opening off my bedroom-to-be as I first saw it. Yes, the floor was that filthy, and yes, the windows were so scarred it was like looking through fog.

Now that room just sings. It could be so many things for different people: an office, sure, but also a playroom, a craft room, an artist's studio, a kid's bedroom, a reading and movie room… Restoring it returned its beauty and its utility in the original sense, its ability to be a useful and comfortable space.

That same room almost two years later, brand-new window-seat, new windows, paint, insulation,and all. It's happy and inviting now. 

That I have sweat and skin in the game (not to mention money) just makes the work all the more satisfying, all the more meaningful. My body remembers. Restoring the house becomes part of my felt experience.

Friday I spent four hours scraping and painting the west-side house eaves to stay ahead of the guys putting up my new gutters. When I finished, I was both exhausted and exhilarated.

"Yes!" I said to myself. "I did that!" I'm not as good a painter as Shantel Durham, my contractor's daughter, is. But I can do some of the work, and get some of the satisfaction of a job done, and done well. That feels very good. 

Are those good-looking eaves and gutters, or what? The eaves on this side of the house were shabby and partly rotted when I first saw them. Now they shine. (Those are heritage tomato plants in the stock-tank planters, grown with seeds from Renee's Garden.)

As does relaxing on my deck as hot afternoon eases into cool evening. As robins chuckle and wrens fuss, a bright yellow tiger swallowtail flutters through the yard, and the twin fawns of the mama mule deer who haunts our block pick their way carefully, small hooves clicking, down the alley.

As this sixty-two-year-old, beautiful but long-neglected house settles in, ready to shelter, nurture, and inspire for another six decades–and beyond. 

What I love about this process of seeing buildings anew, is that "re-storing." Or as my friend, writer and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan puts it, "re-storying." In listening and tending to these places, I am giving them back their voices, their stories, the gifts they have to give us. 

That makes my heart sing.

New office windows (yes, those shingles need their color-coat of paint), new deck, which still needs steps, and new paths beginning to take shape. Old house and yard, new life. 

Renovation: New Windows, New Clarity

All day I've had Jimmy Cliff's reggae rhythms in my head singing the first line of "Bright Sunshiny Day," "I can see clearly now…." (It's actually a Johnny Nash song; the Jimmy Cliff version is better-known though.)

Why is "I can see clearly now" my current earworm? Because yesterday was start-replacing-windows day at my house.

And now I can–see clearly out of at least some of my windows. It's not just visual clarity: the new windows are a big jump up in terms of sound-reduction, and insulation as well. 

I hadn't realized quite how corroded my 60-year-old, neglected windows had become until my contractor, Jeff Durham, and his helper, Bo took the first set out.

The guest bedroom with original windows… 

And with no windows at all… A much clearer, if perhaps too open view!

Getting the Mid-Century Modern windows out without injuring the original wood valance and metal bullnose trim–both integral parts of the uncluttered look and horizontal lines that characterize Mid-Century Modern design–involved a good bit of finesse. Which Jeff and Bo accomplished smoothly, if noisily with their Sawzalls, Dremel tools, and cordless drivers. 

If removal was a bit tricky; installing the new windows was… a bear. 

The new units include double-paned windows, with solid wood framing, and a clad exterior. The ones they were working with yesterday each weigh around 200 pounds. 

New window units storied in my garage (good thing I have a two-car garage so we have space for construction supplies!)

Prep-work involved cleaning up the old openings (I did the easy part, running the shop vac), trimming away obstructions, and leveling and building out the sills to fit the new units. 

Prepping the opening. That siding is the original western red cedar, painted to keep it from drying out in our arid climate. The color is not the original–it was once an eye-popping turquoise!

And Jeff and Bo grunted each new unit into place, marked any further adjustments, hoisted it out (with much rippling of muscles), made adjustments, and then eased the heavy unit in place again. 

One unit installed, one to go…

Once Jeff and Bo got done with the guest bedroom, they moved to my fabulous retro kitchen, and went through the whole process for the main unit of windows in that bay. 

Carefully removing the old windows without breaking the interior bullnose trim…

Opening prepped for the new window unit…

And easing in the heavy-as-heck new unit.

Jeff and Bo knew what they were doing, which made the process look easy, but it definitely wasn't. Still, they got the first three window units in. 

And oh! They are so beautiful.

Once the mullions are painted, and the outsides of each opening are wrapped with new trim, the new units will fit right in. And I will look at the windows I can't afford to replace yet, including the huge bank of three over-and-under windows in the living room, and dream about replacing those too. 

After Jeff finishes renovating two more bathrooms, builds me a back deck, and puts in a new roof and working gutters… 

Which means it'll be a while. Maybe years. That's okay. I have the worst of the old ones replaced. And I have a bathtub now in my beautiful and almost-finished en-suite bathroom. 

The soaking tub in the bathroom we fitted in one corner of my bedroom (my bedroom will get new windows sometime this week). I have a whole suite to myself!

Did I mention that I love my house? My new windows remind me of how life-changing clarity can be.

I am clear about this: I am grateful to be alive, and to have the gift of this refuge, this house that fills my battered heart with love, in the landscape that nurtures my spirit. 

May every one of you find such a home, a place that gives you strength and clarity to pursue your life's mission. And may we each work at making this world a safer, more peaceful, and healthier place for us all–every species, every being. Blessings!