06 February 2009

Malibu Barbie Dream House

This is an old post that I never posted...this happened in 2005...

When we bought this property, it had an older mobile home on it. The wiring & plumbing had been redone and the rest of the house was solid. We tore out the carpet, painted, and did everything we could to rid it of the mobile home feel. My friends often described our house as cozy. It had kind of a cabin feel to it, rather than a camper.

Because we chose to have a racecar, we lived in our house well beyond the use-by date. It was getting to be a panic situation when out of the clear blue sky, my dad offered to buy us a new house. As with everything in my life, this is a longer story than I'm willing to tell. So, I am focusing on that one fact.

We decided that we would put a new manufactured/modular home on the property versus building as we had nowhere to stay while the building occurred. This meant that we stayed in Kevin's shop for seven weeks. Seven weeks to. the. day. I wish I had a blog back then because WHEW would I have an endless source of topics.

Kevin put the racecar in storage and laid carpet from the old house on the concrete floor. We moved in our bed, our recliners, our television, one dresser and the microwave. See something missing from that list? Running water. Not to be defeated, Kevin backed our camper up to the shop and that provided us with a kitchenette and a "bathroom". Bathroom is in quotes because it had a camper toilet and a sink. No shower, we showered at the neighbors every single day for seven weeks. Yeah, that was fun.


It was actually quite cozy. It was during the summer so we were warm and we were working outside until late anyway. This is what "home" was for seven weeks:

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In order to put the new house in, the old house needed to be torn down. We tried everything we could to give it away but regulations kept us from doing so. This was the hardest part for me. We took the day off work, I loaded my camera with film and we all gathered around.

Without warning because he knew I was having a difficult time, Danny - the BEST contractor ever - began tearing the house down. It was gone in thirty minutes. 10 years of memories were nothing but a pile of broken wood & steel.

Kevin came over about half-way through the process to see if I was okay. Without even looking up, I just said "Shut Up." He smiled and walked away.




As soon as the house was finished, we were moving stuff in. The permitting process wasn't complete so we kept the curtains closed during the day. The first night, we didn't have power. We hooked up the generator to have lights, television, etc. We were not going to live in that shop for one more day further than we had to.

Kevin is a great interior designer. He decided during all of our moves where our furniture should go. I didn't even pay attention when they brought the furniture in. However, we did discover, upon moving in that we needed a loveseat and not a couch. We gave the couch away to my in-laws and my nephew said he had one in storage. It was only a few miles away so he & Kevin went to get it.

Now I will remember this FOREVER. I was standing there with Bruce, my father-figure, waiting for the boys to return. The grass wasn't installed yet (we put turf in the front yard later) so we watched the boys drive by the living room windows with the loveseat. Bruce looked and said "What. in. the. hell. was. that?" *That* was a crime against humanity and interior decorators everywhere. It looked like it had been stolen from the Miami Vice set.



The cover you see was one that I found the very next day at Value Village. It was too big but I just didn't care. I wasn't going to tolerate that hideousness for one moment longer than necessary. Now we have a very nice loveseat that I can use as a couch because I am not so much tall.

Now, the house is "done"...as houses are never truly done. Looking at it now, the seven weeks doesn't seem like a very long time. But it was. (:-D Now we've been here four years and sometimes it still catches me off guard. Sometimes I still wake up expecting to be in the new house or go to flip a light switch in a room in the old house.

I wouldn't trade any part of the adventure for anything. Look at the end result:


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