A DIY Kind of Marriage

They brought the mobile home in yesterday afternoon. I passed it on the highway, on my way to do some errands in town. I watched the tan vinyl siding and green shutters slide past me and thought, "There it is. Our new home." They took out a gate to get it off the road, but were unable to tow it down the power line road. The men will be back Monday with a dozier to smooth the way so the trailer doesn't sink into the soft yellow sand. Monday, we hope, the trailer will be taken to our property, to a level cleared area next to a tall oak. When my husband puts on the salvaged front porch, we'll have a view of the lake in the cool of the evening.

Today, my husband worked on the trailer for hours, painting cupboards in the kitchen. The teal color we picked out looks good, a perfect match for the same color in the printed wallpaper. I worked with him for a short time, painting and fighting a headache. The first day we worked on the trailer together, I commented on how fine we were as a team. He's a good boss -- patient, easy going, and the kind that will take you out for a hamburger after a hard morning's work. Ed enjoys this kind of work: restoring, refurbishing, fixing up, and making things go. I said that we could go into business fixing up and re-selling old trailers. We could with a stake to start and an investment of hours and hours of physical labor. The second day we were at it, I changed my mind. "I'd rather sit behind a computer," I confessed. My shoulders hurt from painting and I smelled so bad even the dog would stay away. My husband smiled. I could tell he had no regrets. He'd grown up a skinny kid on a cattle ranch in Idaho and had worked hard all his life.

We took on our first remodeling job right after we got married. The first time I saw the kitchen of his little house I couldn't wait to change everything. Apricot colored cabinets with half a dozen layers of paint. Dark indoor/outdoor carpeting with hues of avocado and orange. A wall of cupboards that stood in the way of any light coming from the large picture window in the living room. Ed had completely redone the master bedroom, all the way down to the dirt and studs, and had mostly finished the small bathroom. The kitchen was next and we started on it after the honeymoon. The carpet would come up. The cabinets and cupboards would come out. The wall would be no more. I have pictures of me with a prybar, a wicked gleam in my eye as I ripped apart that kitchen. We worked on the kitchen for three months and then it was done and beautiful, transformed by our labor of love. Our best decision had been for me to continue to pay rent and for us to live in the Little Barn while we worked on the house. Ed would go to the house and work for a few hours after his day job, then he could retreat to the Little Barn for a hot shower and a soft bed. I mostly helped on the weekends. We were married in April and moved into the house in August.

Sometime later, the woman who had been renting our old single wide trailer next to the house decided to move out. We rolled up our sleeves and pulled on our gloves again. We went to the valley and bought a roll of linoleum and pails of paint to cover up the old, scratched paneling. The trailer smelled bad, having been host to incontinent pets, so we opened all the windows and scrubbed down the walls before laying a new floor. When we were done, my husband's first thought was to rent it out again. I suggested we see if we could sell the trailer and the lot and pay off the mortgage he'd incurred by buying the trailer in the first place. We talked with a realtor, but there were septic problems and no offers we could stomach. My husband decided to move his workshop from our garage into the trailer and he spent many, many happy hours "puttering" in his retreat. Funny, we never missed the income from the rental. I don't think any amount of money could have made my husband give up his shop after he settled in with a cat to keep him company. On winter evenings that came at half past four, he would pull on his LL Bean barn coat, light his pipe, and disappear for a solid hour or two before dinner. I could see the small light he made from the picture window. He had a fire going, burning wood scraps, the radio was tuned to an oldies station, and he was blissfully miles away -- much farther than the 20 yards that lay between the house and his shop.

I know he misses his shop. He is not a man to sit and read a book or to nap away the afternoon (that behavior is left to me). Here he has struggled to fill his time, to be busy because it's what makes him comfortable with himself. He fishes morning and evening some days, the closest he comes to relaxing when I'm not around. And now he has the trailer, his puttering made all the more challenging because all his tools (except for a few hand tools and his drill motor) are hiding in that pile of stuff in the barn. When he disappeared for several hours this afternoon, just after the hot breath of noon, I realized he'd gone to his new "shop." He had work to do and that always sets his balance.

After our showers, we'll go up to the motorhome and watch a movie on DVD, maybe have a plastic tumbler of wine. We'll talk about the things that still need to be done and we'll imagine the work finished, furniture in place, clothes hanging in the closets. We'll settle into the trailer and talk and make plans for our new house. Then, after the foundation is in, the walls are up, and the roof is on, it will be time to start work, together, again.