Moving

June 7, 2001

Remodeling a place costs a lot of money and takes a lot of energy. Why settle for it being an event when you can turn it into a lifestyle?!

July 9, 2001

The Healy-Lennon Remodeling Lifestyle Guide will give you everything you need (except the valium)

Finding the right place - The first step is finding a place to remodel. An empty building is the perfect choice. Tracking down the owner and waiting for a response can take months. This will get you off on the right foot.

What kind of building? The type of building is not so important as is the condition. It must be dilapidated. Not only can you get a good deal on a fixer-upper, it will also provide countless topics for family arguments. This is especially good for men who aren't totally in touch with their feelings and have trouble articulating what is bothering them. For women it will alleviate accusations of PMS. Your moods will no longer seem random or unfounded (unless you happen to have a good one).

Estates and Probate: If you are very lucky your empty building will be owned by a dead person. Transferring property (or the proceeds from property) from a dead person to the living persons who believe they are entitled to it is called "being in probate". This is another event that can be turned into a lifestyle but that is the topic of a different guide. Suffice to say that it will involve more lawyers than a normal sale, more owners in disagreement and an amount of time that increases exponentially with the number of people involved.

Tax Sales and Clear Title: As a beginner you will probably not manage to find an empty building, track down the owner, have the property be in probate AND have the immense good luck of having the sale of the building to the late owner having occurred in a tax sale. Remember, we are pros. We managed to find a building that met all of these conditions.

Tax Sales are not an issue in themselves but sometimes not every detail is complied with. This can leave a "cloud on the title" which means that after you purchase and improve the property but before you sell it for the divorce settlement someone could come and claim that they have a legal interest in it. Clearing up the title issues will take another few months (and of course, more money).

Note: The elements of the deal listed above may sound straightforward. They should not occur in a straightforward manner. Each item will come as a surprise at the point when you think everything is finally ready to move forward. Your job during this process is to keep saying to your spouse "Don't get your hopes up" while getting your own hopes up. If there is no disappointment or emotional deflation at each event, you will miss out on a good deal of the emotional roller coaster ride provided by the "remodeling lifestyle".

We managed to string the above listed events out over a period of about 15 months. (We were in a hurry to move.) It could easily have taken longer but since our original contact with the estate led us to expect to be moved between December and January and our actual moving date was the following June I feel that we succeeded amiably in the lifestyle vs. event department.

The Closing: Unlike buying a new house where the closing is generally associated with the moving date, the closing on a fixer-upper is just a minor milestone. If you are not yet in AA, the closing day will be a good time to tie one on. This may forestall some of the depression and anxiety caused by walking into your "new home" with an upbeat attitude and being hit with the frightening realization that you now actually own this dilapidated mess.

Getting Help from the Family - Now that you're ready to actually begin work on the place you can use the help of family members. You will have discussed this with family and friends beforehand and will undoubtedly have a long list of commitments from people who are skilled at roofing, carpentry, plumbing, tile work, sheetrock, etc. You will also have at least one family member who knows everything about construction supervision and can't swing a hammer, one expert construction worker who has recently suffered a devastating divorce or bankruptcy (perhaps both) and one who knows little about construction, is willing to help and has been out of rehab about three days.

From this list of potential helpers, only the last three will show up. Two of them will be carrying whatever they still own which will include plenty of stuff to get in your way and very few tools. They will move into the construction site or your current dwelling and "work" for free while you feed them, do their laundry and ponder the lack of work getting done.

Be very careful at this stage. Your helpers will suggest many changes to your remodeling plans. Try to keep in mind what logic your original plans were based on. You will already be worn out from the last few months and will undoubtedly follow some of these suggestions but when it is suggested by the "workers" that your plans be changed to include extra bedrooms, be strong. Draw the line!

After a month or two these helpers will be gone. You will then be ready to finish the projects that they began (as soon as you replace the missing tools)

The Alleged Move - At some point in time you will realize - with a start - that the time has come when you must leave your old dwelling even though your new dwelling has not yet achieved the domestic standards of the homeless. This will be an interesting time for you and one where you truly get to experience the "remodeling lifestyle".

You will now be forced to stop working on the remodel and do many tasks to create the temporary solutions needed for living in a construction site. You will lose approximately a week of remodeling time with this effort to make construction site living more convenient which, of course, it will never be. It doesn't matter that you know this. You will have to do it anyway. Some quirk of human nature will convince you that you can live in a construction site without losing your mind or slowing the construction to a complete halt. You will call to mind images of Woodstock and camping trips and for part of one day you will actually look forward to what you have envisioned as a simplified life. This will teach you two things:

The "Other" Job - Due to the fact that the temperament of the self-employed person is in perfect harmony with the temperament of the fixer-upper owner you may very well be both. If so, this is the stage where you will probably realize that you have neglected your business as much as you could get away, have spent more money than you had budgeted for the entire project (although those "extras" will sure look good when they're done) and will have to go back to remodeling only at night after work.

Although this will slow your pace, if you are under 30 it will not make a huge difference. If you are over 45 you might want to stop and consider shooting yourself at this point. The idea of a quick death will seem very appealing. Don't do it. This just shows that you are still viewing remodeling as an event rather than a lifestyle. A slight change in attitude is all that's needed. Remember that there are many countries where people live with less than sub-flooring. Do not be depressed when you realize that you sliced a loaf of sourdough with a hack saw and didn't even flinch. Remember that you did not always want to run with the herd. Most importantly, don't think "I can't wait until this is finished" because as you are probably beginning to surmise, it is not going to be finished.

The 80/20 Rule and the 75/10/8/7 Rule : Efficiency experts know that in most human endeavors 80% of the work will get done in 20% of the total time it takes to complete a project.

Although I have not found other studies to bear me out I believe that this ratio changes to approximately 75/10/8/7 once one is living in a construction site: Seventy five percent of the work will get done in ten percent of the time. Eight percent of the work will go on the Later List and seven percent of the original plan will be completely abandoned.

This rule will combine with Murphy's Law in that you can depend on not being able to find the receipts for any of the supplies purchased for the projects that are being abandoned. This will cause you to have little "guilt reminders" stacked in the (unfinished) garage for years to come.

The "Later" List: The later list works much like a trial separation. It offers refuge in the idea of something happening at a later date until you can get used to the idea that it will most likely never happen at all. It may also play out like a trial separation: If you are married you had better coordinate your "later list" with that of your spouse or the promised hot tub that you can live without (and assume s/he can) may become a factor in your divorce.

Entertaining: This is the true test of how well you have adapted to the remodeling lifestyle. Over time your construction site/home will become normal looking to you. You will be amazed and impressed at those things you have completed and will tend not to notice many of the incomplete areas. Full-blown construction will have turned to tinkering with those projects that you still care about doing. A day will come when you will invite company over without thinking about what you have left to do. Pay attention to the conversation between you and your guests as you show them around. Compare the number of times you use the present tense while they use the future tense:

If you have spoken in present tense throughout the conversation you have totally adapted and are now living the Existential Remodeling Lifestyle. Congratulations!