Confessions of a Sub-Primer

I am a contributor to the sub-prime fiasco.

So much blame for the current economic crisis is placed on the shoulders of the mortgages made to people with less than stellar credit desperate to buy homes they could not afford. The rising rate of defaults on these so-called predator loans, it is explained, has shaken confidence around the world, and the entire economic system is on the verge of collapse.

This bail-out package has been rushed so quickly—desperately—to vote, one wonders if taking just a little more time might uncover better solutions. If, in fact, failed mortgages are at the root, why are we not looking at supporting those mortgages instead of bailing out the “evil” men who made them? This answer seems just as poor a decision as the one that made me sign that mortgage in the first place.

In the super-charged economy of pre 911, when contractors had all the work they wanted and not enough labor to get it done, I rushed along, putting unqualified people in place, making mistakes that tumbled my company into serious debt. Unwilling to face bankruptcy, over-confident that money alone would cure the shortfall, equity in my home seemed the best way to rescue my company, the men, and our families we were feeding.

My own credit had been destroyed in the effort to pay bills late instead of borrowing. Taking advantage of “No doc” loans available, we used my wife’s name, supported by my unproven income.

The interest rate was an affordable 6.5% for 3 years. The processor agreed enthusiastically that I could rebuild my credit and refinance by then, and rates were holding steady anyway, unlikely to rise. I even checked the index rate that would trigger an adjustment and was again re-assured.

So with hope and optimism in ourselves and our commitment to work hard, and in desperation to bail out a business that could turn profitable on the very next project, we met with the courier, and my wife signed the papers. What I did not see in the pages of fine, fine print--rushed through and signed in under 20 minutes—was that the link had enough points over the index to guarantee adjustment upwards.

It angers me to hear commentators speak with scorn of the people who made such decisions. We, The People, who are leading desperate lives to pay these mortgages of 12% are just as much “Main Street” as the citizen asked to pay for the bailout. In fact, we have to pay the mortgage and our taxes.

I chose this option when it was a rate I could afford, but as payments have risen more than $1,000 a month—money that goes entirely to the profits of the lender--my back has been slowly, painfully broken.

The demise of my business, the dissolution of my marriage, the search for a new career cannot be blamed on the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. The desperation to solve financial problems was an imposing factor. I am fortunate to be able to sell my house and get out from under this pain. I know there are others in neighborhoods who have lost all value and are forced to just walk away.

Perhaps there could be a solution that simply adjusts these mortgages back to the original affordable rates, and supports those unable to pay even that. People remain in their homes (perhaps other marriages can be saved), lenders see fair and modest returns, and confidence is restored.

Very simple, yes. But like a frightened child, I am listening carefully to the arguments and reassurances of our President and Congressionals sitting around the kitchen table late into the night. They want to leverage the perceived equity in our government’s home and it sounds eerily familiar.

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll

For the Sake of Fun

So focused on my other blog, I recognize and acknowledge my lack of attention here.

In actuality, while absorbed in the lofty thoughts of heart by night, my days have been methodically constructed around carpentry projects, hour by hour, just doing the work. In completing projects with my own dirty and recalloused hands, I better understand my problems when at the lead of a much larger business.


To really be effective in any endeavor, there must be an element of fun. Responsible for the livelihood of 6 to 10 others, the overwhelming pressure to find work and produce it efficiently under mounting debt smothered rare moments of satisfaction and enjoyment. There was no time for pride or celebration.

In these past months, I have been working alone, or alongside friends who need the help and guidance to improve their homes. In addition to earnings without liability beyond my own two hands, I am able to rediscover the pleasure, sweeping up at the end of the day, of a job well done, day by day, hour by hour. There is an exquisite moment, just before driving off into the homelife, of accomplishment, of plans working out, of measurable progress.

Usually distracted in my life by larger concerns of family, our own home and mortgage, dreams of vacations, and even bigger dreams of someday being the Writer I always wanted to be, the actual tasks of carpentry have been, for me, but means to an end. Not really in stride with the tools in hand, I could recite the adage “measure twice, cut once”, even go through the motions of measuring a third time (having been interrupted by a question), and still get the cut wrong.

Better to leave the carpentry to the ones who really want to do it, I thought, and focused on design and sales. I drew great plans, supported by charts and spreadsheets that no one else actually understood as clearly, and in a booming economy, hired any guy with tools who answered the desperate ads to fill crews to finish all the jobs I could get started.

No matter the impressive portfolio that was built, so very little of it turned out to be any fun.


I miss the big projects, the large and beautiful additions, the buzz of activity on job sites, the line of pick-ups parked in the yard. Honestly, I really enjoyed driving up to answer questions, point fingers, and run off to attend to another site. I tried to be clear that I did not have all the answers, that I was just a facilitator, part of a team, but the truth is that the job needs a leader, someone in touch with every detail, someone who can prevent mistakes, and fixes them quickly with authority, demanding accountability when they happen anyway.

Today, I finish a kitchen. I have installed every cabinet, set every screw, laid every piece of flooring. The job is not perfect if one looks closely enough. I know where the scratches are and the excessive caulk that filled a gap. Even so, my friends will enjoy years of meals here, watch their grandchildren grow. Many, many more scratches will appear.


More importantly, although I would love to redo a couple of measurements and cuts, I will remember this kitchen fondly, the feeling each day of contentment and the tools in hand.

And wouldn’t you know, last night in a casual conversation about something else, I was asked to design an addition.

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll

Second Story Addition: Fire on the Mountain

These chapters are best viewed in order:

Design

Foundation

First Story

Second Story

Second Story Addition

Roof




The flames could be seen from anywhere in the Valley, giant rolling, towering columns dancing in the dawn light. Racing around the side of the mountain to get there by truck, I could see them almost all the way, all the time trying to make them arise from another spot, an empty place.

But there was nothing else it could be.

On February 4, 1978, Tom and Lane's house burned and life became marked as "before the fire" or "after". The linseed rags smoldered in the dark empty entry all through the wet night, only taking hold and turning to flame to waken us to the horror at dawn. Leaping from the truck, I could hear the sirens so far away beginning the long climb up the mountain. At the window I'd just built so carefully, I strained to see inside, but all was black and amazingly still and silent compared to the roar around me (little did I know how close my escape from death just then, how stupid to be so close to the inferno hidden by soot on the hot, ready-to-explode glass).

Desperate to make a difference, I grabbed the hose and tried to spray the back wall, but it only was a drip, drip of useless drops (of course, the lines were broken inside). I threw the hose on the fire and with a shovel beat out sparks falling in the grass all around me.

In truth, it was all useless, way beyond my control and ability. What had been so lovingly brought to life was dying before me. Nothing to do but stand out of the way and weep, four of us huddled, comforting each other where no hope could be found. When the windows finally did blow, great balls of fire as big as Volkswagens lept out, and 25 years later talking to me on the phone as she weeds the garden, Lane still found glass.


Finally, the trucks (hundreds of them it seemed--fire trucks followed pick-ups) arrived onto that tiny lot, men pouring out and running everywhere. I saw three from the lumber company, one who had delivered the concrete and helped us so patiently when our forms blew out. Two more had hooked the pipes in our trench to the water system below. They all came to help and soon it was out.

The house (too young to be a home yet) was still standing, but freshly oiled, it was scorched all the way through. We would have to tear it down, and the worst call--telling Tom and Lane the sad news--was still ahead of me.

Roof

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll

Second Story

Thesechapters are best viewed in order:

Design

Foundation

First Story

Second Story

Second Story Addition

Roof




Spanking fresh out of college with a writer's degree and no idea how to use it, the invitation to help my sister build a house on the Oregon Coast was a perfect distraction. "On the edge of the Earth", Lane and Tom had purchased a chunk of cliffside 400 feet straight up out of the ocean, on the side of a mountain sacred to the Northwest Indians for its spiritual energy.

The Nehalem Valley had three little communities of a few hundred people each, and was otherwise home to eagles, elk, sea lions, and a cove for whales. You can enter on Highway 101 from the north or south, or one bumpy curvy road over the mountains, but regularly after a storm, there is no way in or out.



The lot was cleared and leveled enough to fit a small house, a pile of lumber and a few cars. I set up my tent in the bushes just a little below and off the path that circled the property. We cooked on an open fire in the rocky pit left from an ancient tree. My wages were $25 a week and all the beans I could eat. The view strethed 45 miles down the coastline and forever out to sea.

This was paradise.

An architect building his dream, Tom had designed this sweet little cottage--very green 30 years before the concept became popular. The toilet was considered a composting toilet, but was really a well-vented 50 gallon drum and a hole in the floor, which was later abandoned once kids were around. The "refrigerator" is still working fine: just a cupboard with holes to let the warm air out and the cool air in. The countertop came from a tree on the property. The walls were oiled wood salvaged from other buildings.

Tom was working largely in theory and the carpentry experience of a few summers. I had last worked for Krutsky several years earlier and was very clouded by my studies and dreams in between. But together, and with the passing help of a few friends, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Determination was our most valuable tool.

Being our first poured foundation, the forms broke and spilled 2 yards of concrete down the slope. With electricity unavailable until the utility trench--hand dug 300 feet down the mountainside--was fiinished, every board, every piece of plywood was sawn by hand. Utilizing rickety step-ladders and crafty supports, just the two of us were able to raise the massive 18' header that was the keystone, the arch that framed the ocean view.

Each night, tired, we ate our beans, and in the darkness, huddled by the fire, I played guitar in tune with the Ocean's murmurous roar. We formed deep friendships with neighbors who invited us to shelter when it rained too long, hard and miserably. Weekly, we drove the two hours inland to their home in Portland where Tom and Lane had business, and I walked the city streets. And we could shower.

Each step of the way, like a significant moment in a lifetime, was ackowledged and ccelebrated. Reaching the highest point, an evergreen was nailed to the ridge honoring all of the trees that go into the building of a home. The first and last shingles on the walls were important events in completing the shell, especially to us living in tents. Insulation installed meant at last we could move inside, out of the deepening cold of November, to a mat on the floor. Gradually, Tom and Lane moved in their most precious possessions: the persian carpet, Great Granny's jewelry, their 6 favorite records.



When the floors were sanded--a long exhausting week of noise, grit and strain--they finished all the wood surfaces with Linseed oil, threw the rags in the back corner, and went to Portland for the rest of their belongings. Readying to move on to explore opportunities for a writer in San Francisco, I remained behind, staying at one of the neighbor's who needed help on an addition of their own.

Second Story Addition

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll

First Story

These chapters are best viewed in order:

Design

Foundation

First Story

Second Story

Second Story Addition

Roof


The first morning of summer vacation after 2nd grade began as sunny and bright, and as all vacations should, full of promise and excitement. Then a dump truck lumbered down our little lane, pulling a backhoe, and it got all the better. A truck I recognized followed. Overcome with curiosity, I raced after them and discovered an addition to my school was about to begin.

Every working day of that summer, I was there. Designed (as it turns out) by my father and contracted by the man who had already framed 2 additions to our own home in my short life, this was an adventure. The ease with which that machine broke ground and gobbled dirt into huge piles was marvelous, still a satisfying sight for me on a project today. I signed my name in the fresh concrete and made “mudballs” out of the spillage, piling up an arsenal that my friends dared me to use against other “friends”.

Ed Krutsky was a Pennsylvania traditional Quaker living in a cooperative community. A craftsman by trade, he knew his way around many subjects as revealed in countless coffee-break conversations with my mother over many years. He employed carpenters of similar diversities, likely setting the all-time record for a construction company with college degrees. His three teen sons were there, growing into the business, including Ned who was featured in the book "House" by Tracy Kidder, a great read for anyone involved in a building project.

Also on the crew was an old black man, Harold, who chewed and spat and smelled of liquor, though I didn’t really understand at the time. At minimum wage (then probably $1.25), he defined the expression “grunt labor”, but he was as sweet, gentle and encouraging to me as any man could be. He gave me a shovel and let me fill the trenches beside him, showing me that you stood behind and shoveled forward effortlessly into the hole instead of twisting, turning and dumping, so it could be done in a zenlike way all day long, day after day.

The rest of the crew began to trust me to fetch their tools. Soon, I was carrying the 2x4s and nailing off sheathing. The first fiberglass itch in my throat came that summer as they let me staple, then cut the insulation. By the end, I was painting, measuring and nailing baseboards in the rush to get finished before school reopened in September. It certainly wasn’t the most efficient use of man per hour, but I didn’t slow anyone down, and no one could be cheaper (they used to joke about my paycheck on Friday afternoons, but Ed never wrote me one).

Sometimes my friends came with me, but not joining in, they were soon bored and wanting to move on. They didn’t feel the sweet soul-satisfying whack of driving a nail home. They couldn’t see the progression as concrete led to wood, led to sheetrock, led to finish.

And they certainly could never know the silent fierce pride I felt years after looking from the baseball field at the building I’d helped create out of sticks and sweat.

Second Story

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll

Foundation

These chapters are best viewed in order:

Design

Foundation

First Story

Second Story

Second Story Addition

Roof



My father was an architect, designing schools, labs and offices. A part of every vacation was looking at buildings along the way. As an adult, I'm still learning that many of those were not actually his, but destinations for us which he viewed like an artist in a museum. Early memory for me is of a bewildered weary group of kids on the sidewalk looking up, looking around, going in, coming out, and back in the car again.

My earliest memory is awakening from my nap to see a giant steam shovel ("Mike Muligan!" my Mom called) approach the house to make mountains of dirt for me to run over.

We had five additions put on this architect's home. It was not unusual to see it featured in Sunday supplements or a part of house tours. On a little lane, cars often slowed down and circled back past the house of glass. At night, they could see right in and, mischeivously, we'd be five little kids dancing wildly.

My father built the original house on evenings and weekends after the War, moving into a small unfinished space with his wife, her grandmother, and their baby. He built the master bedroom after the second child, just before me.




The living room came next with memories not only of the excavator as mentioned, but also of our dog falling into the cellar hole, my first time on a ladder (2 rungs), men with sledge hammers knocking holes in our wall. The "Girls' Wing" was built in 1961 when I was old enough to hold boards for my Dad and learned a mouthful of curses, a carpenter's tool when things still don't fit right after the third cut.


In 1967, after several years successfully designing buildings for a new company with the strange name of "IBM", and a house full of teenagers, he designed a 2 story redwood work of art. Completely separate from the main house with a pool table and fireplace, the Octagon is counted by many at high school reunions to be one of the best memories of the day.

Finally, the pool was added in the back after the kids had mostly moved into their own lives--my first job as a contractor. Painted black to reflect the impression of a pond, rhoddendrons and sculptures dangle over the water, and natural stones of all shapes come right to the edge.



A home divided by plastic walls and still coated with dust is normal to me. Plans on the table, sketches of addtions never built, talk of the next project is completely familiar, invigorates my brain like food in the belly.

I am born and bred a remodeler.

First Story

Please share with your friends

Tweet Follow @KipdeMoll