So, it was a ghost town of a house. Abandoned mid-construction, just the bare studs and plywood floors, a lighter and pack of cigarettes left in an empty roofing nail box, like the guys working on it had to leave in a hurry.

    It was for sale as-is, the builder apparently having run out of money. It was the architectural version of a bag of kittens left by the side of the road. For me, it was love at first sight.

    I find the smell of 2x4’s as arousing as that of, I don’t know, Irish Spring on Gary’s skin? The first whiff of fireplace smoke in the fall? A nice pork butt on the grill? It’s all hope and possibilities and making something out of nothing. I come from two families of builders – maybe it’s genetic.

    This was back in 2004. Gary and I saw the “for sale” sign on our way back from the movies. The driveway was so steep and rutted he was afraid the car would get stuck, so I got out and walked up it. The back door was standing open. I stepped in and then I saw them: the balconies. It had a balcony above, where the bedrooms were, and a balcony below, looking onto the entryway. And between the two, if you can picture it, the holy grail for me when it comes to shopping for real estate: room for a twenty-foot Christmas tree. I pictured Tink and Z leaning over, Rapunzel-fashion, tossing tinsel. I also pictured myself hanging sheetrock, laying tile, choosing this, planning that. It had been a long time since I’d had a house to build.

Gary doesn’t know this but I went back alone, time and time again, over the next six months or more, as the house sat empty and unwanted. I’d always stand in the same spot, picturing the Christmas tree.

    When Maw and Paw decided they couldn’t live alone any longer and wanted to move in with us, that was the house we didn’t buy. Instead, we chose the tired, ugly 3800-square-foot behemoth we now live in, simply because it had room for all of us: Gary, Z, Tink and me, Maw and Paw, and Gary’s business. It has a rabbit-warren sort of layout, and even the sunken living room has a specially-built-out ceiling to bring the height down to eight feet. Every year, our modestly-sized Christmas trees scrape some more of the (I kid you not) glitter-encrusted cottage cheese off the ceiling.

    Though the unswervingly practical Gary objected from the word go, for a long time I was sure we could have made the double-balconied house work for us all. But now, seeing how little time and money I am able to put into this place, I don’t know. Gary does have an irritating way of being right. Anyway, that house was sitting on nearly two acres of land with building permits for three more houses ready to go. They wanted nearly $600,000 for it. There was just no way.

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