"With money in your pocket you are wise and you are handsome. You can sing well, too." - Yiddish proverb

Can you spot the fashion faux pas?

When we moved to Baker Rd. almost two years ago we were in love with this three acre plot in the woods with a stream running down the middle. We named the rustic one-room cabin with a loft Fred, the Swedish word for peace. The dirt floor structure slightly larger than a single stall garage we dubbed Barnette, and the tired 1978 single wide we tagged MoHo, short for mobile home. When we bought the place in the spring of 2016 MoHo was dark, dingy, and musty after sitting vacant for two years. It was full of classic period touches like dark wood paneling everywhere, brown shag carpeting everywhere, orange Formica countertops, and cheapo cabinets with handles in the center of the door.

MoHo also bears all the marks of a mid-70's budget dwelling. The single pane aluminum windows leak and "sweat" causing rot on the sills. The ceiling is some kind of fiberboard and 7' 6" above the floor, which means that all doors are 75" tall and 30" wide, except for the expansive front door at 32" wide. The wood stove in old and inefficient, and the floor...well...is a problem.

The plan was to live in MoHo until we could afford to build our dream home, a 600 sq. ft (+/-) tiny house. In the meantime I went to work giving MoHo a "refresh." I filled in the grooves in the paneling with drywall mud and painted the walls in lighter colors. The dirty ceiling panels got cleaned and a fresh coat of white paint and I added baseboards and trim around windows and doors, something absent in budget mobile homes of the era. (We were surprised at the difference that one change made.) 

I also went to Lumber Liquidators and bought boxes of the cheapest laminate flooring they had - a discontinued pattern on sale - and put it down in place of the nasty carpet. That's when I discovered the problem. The factory subfloor glued down over the I-beam frame rails is a pressed board that quickly disintegrates when it gets wet. So when I pulled up the carpet I discovered that any area where water had penetrated I could see through to the ground, including in front of both exterior doors. Worse, the counter and base cabinets in the far corner of the kitchen drop about 2" in the corner thanks probably to a leak under the sink at some point. The subfloor crumbled and the cabinets dropped. 

In the case of the area in front of doors and elsewhere - put down some plastic sheeting and cover it up with laminate. In the case of the kitchen counter and cabinets - deal with it. We didn't (don't) know when the tiny house project funding will be in place but MoHo is livable, I have The. Lowest. Maintenance. wife in the history of wives, and this 840 sq. ft. of living space is more than enough for us. Knowing it's temporary makes the frustrations very bearable and we've found work-arounds for most of the shortcomings. Pam goes into town weekly to do laundry, I repair or replace as necessary, and the rest we've decided to think of as endearing.

But as a result of a conversation we had with son Josh when we were in AZ a few weeks ago we're rethinking our plan and taking a very different tack.

But lest this post grow too long we'll save that for next time.