Besides knowing what I wanted to do, I had a strong sense of how I wanted to do it. I wanted it to be my plan. I wanted to decide how to paint it and I wanted to choose the cabinets, counters, and appliances myself and to make all the decisions on the landscaping. I just wanted to buy a house and have my way with it.
In truth, I was past ready to get started renovating after I graduated from high school. But a college education was very important to my grandmother and something I had to do first. It was at the University of Cincinnati that I read a real estate investment book laying out the reason for an aspiring home renovator to buy “the worst house on the block.” This book helped me begin to understand the financial upside of rehabilitating a home with potential.
Soon after reading this book, I came up with a plan that had me working on a home rehab instead of a part-time job after class. The math made it clear that this would be more lucrative, and I found three people to go in with me on a house in rough shape to fix up in the evenings and on weekends. It was a great plan until it fell apart early on. The others bought me out, and I was happy to get my investment money back. I still kept watching This Old House on TV each Saturday Morning, but I placed my home renovation goals on the back burner. Although I wanted to buy my first home as soon as I graduated from UC, paying back my student loans became my top priority after commencement, and I owed too much money to qualify for a mortgage.
Eventually, I was in position to take my shot on the worst building on the street. It was a condemned home, devasted years before when a dryer fire grew out of control. I saw past the smoke smell and stains from the flames and was excited about this solid, brick, ranch-style house with plenty of room for improvement. Along with that, I felt I had a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone; renovate a house of my own and use the proceeds to erase some of my student debt.
My parents visited and were concerned, convinced that I’d made a major screw up, and were reminded of the negative idiom: You can’t turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse. To them, I’d invested in a self-appointed mission destined to fail. Yet, when I finished a year later, the worst property had become the most valuable, and I won a contest on thisoldhouse.com, the website for the TV show I’d watched all those weekends while I was in college. Eventually, after I sold this first project house, I paid off all those student loans, proving to myself that I was not too shabby at idiomatic stone throwing.
Although my first project went better than planned, my parents were just as unimpressed with my second rehab. Again, they thought I’d made a major blunder, that the two-story cottage was a lost cause. They pleaded with me, “Please cut your losses and find someone to take that thing off your hands.” Yet that wasn’t really a viable option. My money and reputation were tied up in that thing. I simply had to work my plan. Like the first house I saved, number two surpassed my expectations, and my mom said, “Well, you did it again. You turned this pig’s ear into a silk purse.” The icing on the cake came on the day I walked into the book store, flipped open the current issue of Restoration Style Magazine, and saw my house featured inside.
So, to be clear and accurate, I didn’t start calling my projects pig’s ears as a way to be clever or unique. If I’m being honest with myself, my own use of this uncouth tag came from the mixing of two ingredients; disappointment and bitterness. The thing is, without me being totally straightforward as to how this pig’s ear description came about, folks are often left wondering, “What’s the real story?” Well, that’s it. It came from my own family.
I think it’s fair to say I worked hard to disprove that pessimism, and I’ve turned more than those two pig’s ears into silk purses. It hasn’t been easy. It’s required a lot of planning, hard work, and passion, but I did what my parents and others predicted was impossible. I wasn’t trying to prove a point or show anyone up. I was just a kid with a dream and then a big debt to pay off. I wanted to do one thing, I had to do another, and along the way, I found a career getting paid to do something I really loved doing: buying and saving houses that other people didn’t want.
To be fair, as I’ve already alluded, my parents weren’t the only ones who let me know they thought I was being foolhardy. Others were just as doubtful. But it was my plan, my investment, and the student loans were mine to pay back every month. I wasn’t asking for approval, opinions, or any type of charity. I was content just doing my thing and felt like I was being polite giving people tours of my project while I answered their questions and explained what and how I was going to make it happen. Mom always told me it was impolite to invite yourself over to someone else’s home. The thing is, most of these naysaying visitors invited themselves over, and once they were there, too many of them started trying to pour cold water on my plans. If I do say so myself, I was a good sport, but I’d have been fine if all those cynics had just waited until I got my certificate of occupancy.
Rather than sharing this story from some dark place, I’m explaining where the pig’s ear moniker came from, but it’s worth noting that I’m letting you wannabe rehabbers and flippers know that people might be tactless, and most won’t apologize after you get your hard-earned CO. Just keep in mind that in most cases, what they’re really telling you, in a backhanded way, is that they can’t do it themselves. And that’s okay. If it was easy to turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse, more folks would be doing it, and that would drive the price of unwanted houses even higher. So, in a way, it all works in your favor.
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