I have always been the type of person who loved to make silk purses out of sows ears. But people who profess such have normally acquired the skills to renovate and restore items to former glory.
The wooden and glass exterior door is the perfect example. Restored it will be simply gorgeous. As good, if not better, than a new $500 door. Like my mother I'm a stickler for "quality." If I am forced to renovate a single wide I am going to approach it as I would a frame house and make sure that everything used is the best quality available.
The rotten "chipboard" bathroom cabinets are being replaced with outstanding quality oak cabinets. The broken windows were replaced with double glazing. The new range/oven is simply gorgeous, brand new black and silver that should have retailed for over $800. I got it almost free. The upgrading has always been a priority.
Of course, I see things very simplistically. Throughout the past three years I kept saying, "IF I could find an old building or trailer I could renovate it" but I had NO idea the types of rules and regulations the state impose on people.
I have watched beautiful 2,000 sq foot homes emerge from what started out as single wides. What has happened to our society where that is difficult to do anymore?
I kept being told that there was "something wrong with my self esteem" if I would even consider a modular or mobile. I thought that was a pretty daft statement. There was, I felt, nothing wrong with my self esteem. I was simply using common sense. But after yesterday... well maybe the "backhoe woman" was correct. Perhaps I SHOULD question my self esteem.
I needed a lavatory. The old one is the green of the 70's and nasty. The Humane Society thrift store had toilets without all of the parts, and finding the parts would be as costly as buying a new lavatory. I didn't have the funds to buy a new lavatory.
So I put aside the need and concentrated on other items. Specifically the roof, flooring, and windows to "dry in." Then the electric poles. Then the counter tops, kitchen cabinets, exterior stucco and interior sheet rock. The list is so long in this "total" renovation project the lavatory started to drop down the "wish list" until it became the very last thing I could worry about.
So what do you do when you see a fairly new lavatory sat outside the dumpster that clearly came from a renovation? Do you sneak back and try to grab it before someone see's you? Or keep driving out of sheer embarrassment?
I'll have to admit that my level of embarrassment peaked to a new level when faced with the dilemma yesterday. I drove past thinking, "I just can't stop, this is way too much." But then I had a change of heart and considered that getting anything on that wish list was progress, and I needed to consider the finances, or lack of.
Getting the lavatory into the truck was an art unto itself. The "art" was trying to make sure that you seemed to be UN-loading it to all who drove past, and stopping yourself from turning beet red in the process. Yesterday I found out that "necessity really IS the mother of invention."
Thank God there wasn't a matching bath tub!
'Mater artium necessitas' - William Horman
