The house we bought, well, the warehouse (Warehouse? There! House!)

We knew the housing collapse was coming so we sold our place in Vermont while the market was at its peak. The down side, of course, was that we then bought in Silver City at its peak. Houses that the year before were $65,000 were $130,000 and land next to the forest or wilderness areas could no longer be had. The town had, unfortunately, been listed as one of the ten best places to retire in a number of publications the year before.

So, we looked, and looked, and looked, and then found this 4000 square foot adobe cabinet shop and warehouse on one acre, with, wonder of wonders, a double wide as well.

To get to the house you have to drive across an arroyo. (No problem the real estate agent said, rarely ever is too tough to cross. Liar!):

The outside had some problems and was rather disreputable before I put the porch roof on. Julie could not stand it (neither could I but I was too lazy) and worked to put in a cactus garden in the adobe planter in front. You can see what adobe houses do when it rains (they all do that):

Here is what the inside looked like a month after we moved in and I began work on it (the ceilings had already been sheet rocked by someone else, very poorly as it has turned out):

We did the house in sections. Here is the first section about ready for sheet rock. We’ve pulled wire for the electrical in this section already but the most intensive wire pulling yet remained.

Here it is sheetrocked, mud and taped, and painted and where we pretend it is livable (it is starting to look like something, eh?):

Here is the beginnings of my office that turned out to be the bedroom for a couple of years (we were formerly in the cabinet spray room, yuck):

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