Our House
our backyard, Springvale, Maine.
In 2016, my wife Colleen and I moved across the country from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. We lived in a perfect little house with our two cats until 2019 when we moved to a farmhouse in Springvale, Maine where my wife would begin a new career as a cut-flower farmer and floral designer.
Find someone who looks at you the way Leo looks at this heater.
The house was built in 1852 and was charmingly ramshackle. Most of the improvements we made were cosmetic, though we nearly killed ourselves trying to get the land into some kind of shape after years and years of neglect. The house was situated on 10 acres and it took a herculean effort for Colleen to cultivate just two of them. Ticks, black flies, and mosquitoes were a plague.
Colleen, toiling. Jan, “helping.” (Springvale, ME, 2020)
During the pandemic, the farm was invaluable. In addition to Molly and Leo, we had chickens and ducks that provided hours of much needed amusement. We were kept plenty busy maintaining the farm and the house, and could shelter in place with friends who needed an escape from New York. After years of touring, we were happy to offer a restful place to people in need of a getaway.
Left: Little Sheila • Right: Baby Bruce
We enjoyed our time on the East Coast, but several factors made it clear we needed to return home to the Pacific Northwest. Both of us grew up in Seattle and nearly all of Colleen’s family still lives in the area so Washington State was the natural destination (despite our time in Oregon). Unfortunately for us, the Northwest is also a highly desirable area and somewhat cost prohibitive. What was available that both suited our needs and was within our means was an uninhabitable derelict structure in the flower-growing capital of Washington: Mount Vernon in the Skagit Valley.
not pictured: the smell
The first thing that hit you when you stepped in was the smell. An impenetrable and foul miasma in the form of various pet accidents, mold, and pounds and pounds of mouse and squirrel poop hidden in the walls, unseen but emanating an inescapable stink. All of those ingredients were left to stew as the house sat vacant for over a year.
The only working bathroom was a lazily constructed mess built into the kitchen for some reason, inexplicably appointed with a jacuzzi tub. There was a hole cut in the floor of an upstairs bedroom, a piece of plywood lain over it with the words Do Not Walk On writ upon it. Layers of carpet over linoleum over more linoleum over tile over more linoleum in nearly every room.
…or—just an idea—you could fix the hole in the floor. (or not cut one in the first place?)
The land was wild and crazily overgrown. As we cut back yards of ten-foot high blackberry bushes, we kept discovering sheds choked with refuse. The septic system was no longer functioning. Same for the well.
the before, and the before that
Our new neighbors have been supportive and helpful throughout the whole process, which became especially meaningful as we were hamstrung for eight months waiting for the company we hired to repair the foundation (who were the antithesis of helpful). After they promised us the work would be finished by November of 2022, they didn’t start working until late-March of 2023. This meant very little work on the actual house could be done while we waited for them. If we started work on the framing, it was possible that as they worked on the foundation, things could shift and knock any work we did off plumb.
Because the guy who wrote up the quote was an idiot, the actual job ended up being something completely different from the work they sold us on. (And before you say why didn’t you fire them and get a new company? there are only two companies that do this kind of work and the other one never got back to us. Also, at the time we hired them, we didn’t know enough about foundations to know any better and were relying on the expertise of, you know, a foundation company. Also, getting a new company in would’ve meant starting the whole process over from scratch, setting us back another six months.) So the supports they put in under the house were attached to rotten floor joists that would need to be replaced. Our knight in shining armor, AKA Francisco ended up having to redo nearly all their work in the end in order to fix the ground floor flooring which was wildly uneven.
Predictably, as we began demolition to restore the interior of the house, small problems became big problems that became nearly insurmountable problems.
We found floating beams and missing floor joists. Structural beams had been cut away to make room for unnecessary changes to the floor plan, warped floors and rotten sill plates, DIY plumbing that used electrical conduit instead of sewer pipe.
A stove pipe was clumsily grafted to an unused but not-decommissioned chimney which ran up the middle of the house. The wood-burning stove attached to it was the size and weight of an Oldsmobile. Basically, it was a miracle the house was still standing.
Desperation is a powerful motivator though. We have since replaced nearly every major system in the house with the exception of the roof which by some miracle does not leak (yet); well, septic system, plumbing, electrical, windows, siding, sheetrock, floors, and about 50+% of the framing are all new. Best of all, the smells are finally gone, though they held on til the bitter end.
June, 2022 • February, 2023 • August 8, 2023
There are still quite a few things left to do. The sub-floors are all repaired, but we still need to put in actual flooring. We need to paint, and we need to trim out and hang all the interior doors. Optimistic projections are we will be able to move in to our new house in two weeks if we really put our heads down and bang out the last of these tasks. And let’s face it: you’re never 100% finished with a house.
At some point, things will be back to some version of normal and Colleen can get back to growing her business. I lack the imagination to see a project like this through—not to mention that I’m the opposite of process-driven—so the overseeing of this nightmare has fallen to her. She has handled it remarkably well. If it had been left to me, we’d be living in the street. Not kidding.
Trying to come up with something to write about this week that was music-related was not going to be possible. I’m hoping to be able to think about music again soon, to be able to work on music, and make plans beyond what’s six inches in front of my nose, and shake this gripping fear that we’re going to lose everything. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we might’ve found the path.
草の戸も 住替る代ぞ ひなの家
Even a thatched hut
May change with a new owner
Into a doll’s house
— Matsuo Basho
I truly hope so.
More anon,
Hanz
p.s. for more photos and to hopefully see this dang thing finished, follow along on Instagram @yeswekamb