Remembering could hurt!

(Houses shown are some we built)

(Our home for a week here in Wickham Park. We are under two beautiful Live oaks and surrounded by water as you can see)

(medium 3BR)

Though inactive,  I am still a General contractor, I am a builder….. but most of all I am a carpenter.

I used a Ross Perot bumper sticker once but as a rule, I do not use bumper stickers. However, while I was an active builder I said there was one bumper sticker I would use if I ran across it.  It is the one that reads:

I spent the majority of my life in electricity and electronics. That was okay, but the whole time I continued to think of the things taught me by Luke Tucker in the building business.  I worked for him as a flunky and Carpenter’s helper as my first job.

I am not ashamed to admit it; nothing excites me more than the smell of fresh sawn lumber (discounting love and sex of course). I get the most excited when walking into Lowes Lumber department.

(small 2BR)

As a successful  builder my son Mark worked for me. Later he became a General contractor with my blessings, and did well. A divorce and his stubbornness caused him to hit the skids. Now after over 5 years he seems to have found himself, and we are praying it continues.

We are here in Florida to see his first closing in over 5 years.  He bought and remodeled a nice 2 BR house.  As I said previously, the closing is next Friday.

But the problem is, while here, he drives us around pointing out in very nice neighborhoods,  some run-down houses, saying:

This one is for sale for about $38,000.

This one will go for $32,000.

You can get this one for $50,000.

And this goes on….. and on…..

(Above is  one we built for my brother near Moss Lake in Shelby, NC)

NOW I want them all (these fixer-uppers he shows). I want to go to work remodeling these homes. I hate to see a nice home mistreated. To me it is a crime to mistreat  some builders masterpiece.  At least that is how I looked at every house, my heart went into it. I always remembered the words I told Sherry when I started building, when she learned her home was on the line for the construction loans. I told her, “Honey I will never obligate more than I can pay and I will never build a house we would not live in.”

(Thisone above, Sherry and I cleared this land, mixed all the mortar, laid every brick and drove every nail, She even helped roof it. We nearly killed our selves pouring the driveway!)

I honored that promise. There was only one house I was ashamed of, and it was the color that made me ashamed.  The house was a custom home and the buyer was a painter. He wanted wood siding, then he painted it an ugly green .(IMO of course)

I will consider myself lucky if we get out of here without buying one of these homes. I am ready to drive nails…….

Nite Shipslog

PS:

Believe it or not, my Sherry even smiled in agreement when I said, “Let’s buy one.”  (But did she mean it?????, or did I miss-read that look?)

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Friend Buddy’s Mustang (I think he has sold it)