(Responseto TV Show Viewers: Post 20 - March 9, 2026)
One
question I’ve heard for decades goes something amounting to, “What’s the
hardest part about working for yourself buying and renovating your own houses?”
People are curious about financing, inspectors, the difficulties with finding
subs to hire, etc. For me, the big hurdle to overcome has most often been finding
the right property.
I always preferred
having something to salvage, half or more of the structure, if that makes sense—a
potential starting position once I cleared away debris and decay. And having a
motivated seller was always helpful.
Once I got
married, it grew even more challenging since, along with the other ideals, I
had to start factoring in distance from our house, the kid’s schools, and how I
could complete the job without being there nearly as much. Fortunately, I’d
checked all my boxes enough times to know that I’d fall in love with my next
project sooner or later.
Before marriage,
I’d been in the habit of buying the next house before selling my finished one. But
the Great Recession and economics, more than family, made me downshift into
a more sensible strategy, and at the moment of getting the TV director’s email,
I was project-less for the first time in over a decade. So, I had no renovation
underway that I could use as a backdrop for our videos, which was the biggest
reason we’d filmed in the backyard by the kid’s treehouse.
*
On days
that Diann wasn’t working, I’d been actively on the hunt for the next project.
I’d looked at scores of properties—online, in person, drive-bys, and a few walkthroughs
with our realtor that had been unfruitful.
However, after
I sent in the video, it was as if the heavens opened, and a huge ray of sunshine
was beaming down on an old house that had caught my attention online many times.
For months it had been one of those listings marked as a pending sale, but just
in time, it was back in play. And even better, relisted at a reduced price.
I made an
appointment to go see the inside and walked the property with our realtor. From
the outside, the most distinctive feature of the reddish brown one-story was an
eight-sided turret room built off the corner and next to the front porch.
Inside it was a lot like my other pig’s ears: hodge-podgy colors and trim throughout
a floorplan clearly added onto many times by previous owners. Bathrooms and
rooms used for bedrooms dotted the sixteen hundred square feet, with the
kitchen in the back and much of the space empty and unused.
As we
emerged from our interior review of the octagon shaped room—surprisingly a
bathroom with four windows looking out over a busy neighborhood corner—the realtor
said, “I’m just not sure what you’re gonna be able to do with this place.”
But I was
already seeing the what’s and how’s and whys, picturing in my mind the way it
could be opened up, bringing the forgotten front of the house back to life.
More importantly though, it seemed like a good fit for me, my experience,
skills, and my comfort level with something my gut said looked worse than it
was. Plus, it had two garages—attached and detached—on a half-acre property that
oozed with potential.
And
topping it off, it was in a great school district. So, if Diann liked it when I
was finished, we could make it our home.
It took a
few days, but we eventually agreed on a price and closing date, and these preparations
consumed my thoughts, pushing out those regarding the email up to New York and whether
or not anyone in the Big Apple had been able to open and watch our videos.
(Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 21 - Coming Soon)
