Renovation Salivation - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 29

(Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 28 - March 25, 2026)

Summerville, South Carolina is a large community twenty-five miles inland from Charleston and is now a widespread city that straddles the interstate highway connecting the low country coast with Appalachia. The old house I’d just closed on, built circa 1907, was eighty feet above sea level, a safe height out of range of any storm surges and flooding. I mention the elevations, because they are key to the town’s history that surrounded our investment.  

The impressive mansions of Summerville are like many of the stately homes of Peninsular Charleston: built with rice money earned, swindled, or inherited. If there were a named epicenter of Berchador—Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester—this hub would be it, as its jurisdiction spills into all three counties.

There are over one hundred named swamps in the lower lying areas of this tri-county region, and there was a time when the mysteries of malaria motivated more than a few wealthy planters to build homes up on this expansive bluff, away from sickness and disease ravaging communities of the wetlands, marshes, and rivers.

The home I was taking on in November 2013 was not in the stately manor category, but this added-onto-cottage was nearby enough to these properties that it was likely inspired and influenced by the decadent architecture of this southern village known as the Flower Town in the Pines.

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The stack of official documents and the sliding of keys across the table happened at the RE agent’s office. Afterwards, I did what I’d done in the past and bee-lined to the new property, attempts at scratching out some productivity from what was left of my day in mind.

Part of what I’ve enjoyed about this career is the adventure that I find each project house to be. No two renovations have been anywhere near the same and this Summerville rehab was starting off as markedly unique. First off, I’d spent the half day there the week prior with a film crew. And now today, in the hours after signing the paperwork and handing over the check, the owner was still there. This had never happened before, and because of this uniqueness, I minded it less than I might otherwise.

Creating a rough sketch of the house, prior to really digging in, is one of my favorite collection of hours at the kickoff of each project. This initial step is my first chance to begin understanding the property inside, to start to develop a feel for what I’m really dealing with. I enjoy redrawing rooms, halls, and starting point details on graph paper before the process of redesigning it that happens after.

When I was younger and drawing graph paper house plans in my bedroom or sprawled out on the living room carpet, each square of the traditional grid paper would represent nine square feet. But on my first real life renovation, the house condemned due to a dryer fire, I graduated to a system with tinier boxes where each line was equivalent to four inches. And rather than rounding everything—doors, cabinetry, windows, and appliances—to the nearest three feet, I was more precise. Some doors were shown accurately at two feet, others thirty inches. Same with windows, etc. Kitchen counters were twenty-four inches wide on my drawings, bathroom vanities only twenty. And in lieu of one solid line for a wall, I showed each as four inches thick. There were still some rounding errors with my process, but it was tighter than my nineteen hundred’s method and faster and more cost-effective than hiring an architect or trying to create a drawing on a computer somewhere. I’d done the latter in college, and old-school-in-the-field was most practical and economical for what I was doing.

As I worked my way around the Summerville house on November 15, 2013, the old widow who sold it to me and her relatives were wrapping up her moveout. She’d lived in this home for decades with her family and I saw no real reason to rush her. I did my measuring as the woman and her kin did what they needed to do and overheard them talking about me when they likely thought they were speaking more quietly. One said something like, “That man up there’s got a plan.” Then he added, “You can believe that.”

I didn't actually have a solid plan just yet, but I was on my way, excited about starting my next pig's adventure, a project I hoped would flick me into a version of the renovator I'd been not too far back in my past.

(Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 30 - Coming Soon)