THE IMP: BEFORE (or, right now)

Meet The Impala, briefly identified in my head as The White Elephant, now officially known as The Imp.  The Pretty Professor came up with her nickname.  I’m grateful for his distillation of her title, his diminution of her hugeness,  and more so for his embracing of her presence in our not-so-big driveway.

Here we go, with Before Photos!

Here’s starboard, and a first look at the two doors, and original jalousies that grace her all around:

This is the portish backside, with temporary roofing holding things together.  Don’t know what’s up with that, but I think a leaky window should take the blame. Note the dryer vent, a throwback to a recent life as a mobile launderette:

Here is the dining room/convertible bed, sans any soft cushy bits at all.  The benches were covered with red shag carpet, which my kind cousin ripped out upon taking possession of the Impala before I laid eyes on it.  She also removed the cushions, thus subtracting a few full contractor bags from my coming days:

Here’s the first area of significant (in other words, obvious) water damage that’ll cause digging around in paneling and (cough cough) insulation.  This is the front, over the dining area.  I’m sad that the chandelier is smashed up:

 

Also note the chrome exhaust fan, possibly the only thing keeping me from wanting to go completely low-tech with The Imp.  One needs AC for this bit to work, I believe. If I can power it with DC, hell’s bells, that solves that!

Good lord, this stove pulls my heartstrings.  However, its functionality is a question mark.  I’ve no experience with replacing propane lines and such, so the thought scares the bejeezus out of me.  Boom, no thanks. Heartstring-pulling stove may become charming platform for my Coleman two-burner, oven may become pot and pan storage:

I don’t even know exactly where this is.  Might be the dining area nearest the kitchen hood:

The kitchen, all aglow with sunbeams reflecting off of the mason jars in the tiny sink.  The adorable sink also contains an expired full bottle of artificial rum flavoring.  Very mysterious.  Note the classy mirrored backsplash:

This bath is made for a toddler, but constructed of rather perfectly intact enameled steel basin, bowl, and tublet.  My research into black water management has shown me the benefits of other sorts of potty arrangements.  One sure thing: a composting toilet will go where that little wobbly bowl is now perched:

Just the upper corner of the bath.  Note lack of water damage…here:

Adjacent to the bath, or within the bathroom, stands this set of cabinets I call The Wardrobe.  Like every other cabinet in The Imp, it is made of delicate laminate. Its integrity seems trustworthy, at least door wise.  The drawers give me doubts:

We now enter the bedroom, where things get dicey. This is the back door, not dicey.  This is a storage cabinet, which is destined for some burn pile, and accompanying lamp shelf, also not long for this world:

Did I mention that the bedroom was prime dicey territory?  Holy crap. Things get downright sketchy back here, and this is where most of the real reconstruction will happen.  Water took out part of the ceiling, a sconce, and I suspect the majority of the back wall under the window.  The drooping sconce made the small person say, “Oh, oh, we have a situation, Mommy.”  We do.  It can be fixed with really inexpensive lumber and some fresh insulation and a great deal of faith:

 

 

The view from the back to the front:

 

Glamour shot of the front corner:

 

All I can manage to imagine right now is a crowbar in my hands and a dust mask on my face.  As fresh structural parts replace what’s really rotten, I’ll see a clearer picture of how and who she needs to be for us.  Do I preserve every detail, time-capsule-style?  Do I make her into a gyspy land yacht ready to boondock by candlelight? Or is there some shred of “modern” that will translate into Pinterest-worthy sweeps of clean white paint and dove grey laminate faux barn wood flooring?

We all know that ain’t happening.

 

What I do know is that the learning curve isn’t as steep as it feels right now.  I’ve taken things apart to make new things many times.  Once, I even took apart most of the plumbing in my old house and made miracles like FLUSHING and HOT WATER happen.  A few little 1x2s and some luan isn’t anything.  What I lack in muscle memory, the internet will tell me.  If I could climb a real roof to re-paint it with aluminum goo every spring, I can work with a can of tarry goo to stop the drip in the back of The Imp.

Thank goodness it rained and I checked.

FREEDOM IS A LITTLE STINKY AND THAT’S FINE BY ME

I used to have a little house.  It was the second tiniest house in the tiny town where my mother’s family grew up.  The tiniest house was occupied by my grandma’s friend, friend’s husband, and friend’s squirrel monkey.  When my grandma went there to give her friend a perm, the house–immaculate, always–smelled so much better when the perm lotion went into effect.  Monkeys are interesting, but there’s no getting around monkey smell no matter how clean your house is.

Reason One, why I’ll never live with a monkey: not enough Pine-Sol in the world.

My house smelled like all sorts of things, not all of them under our control and not all of them good.  Now, when I smell those less-than-Renuzit scents, I remember in a visceral mute way that sends homesickness to my core.  Everything mixed into an alchemy of something better by all of the cooking happening in the second tiniest of kitchens or (before the air conditioner) whatever was drifting in through the dusty screen door. The fridge stayed fresh as rain and the trash can never went weird, but a very very old house produces certain chemical reactions deep in its basement and walls and habits. In an old house or anywhere, a little something off makes good things smell right and true.

Pure good is for expensive candles that liars burn to make guests think that nothing in their worlds stink.

Baked ham and coal oil lamps were winter, daffodils and wet basement and wet dogs were spring, wild onions and peonies and irises and sweet corn husks and crude-covered coveralls were summer, and apple pie and dust burning off the gas element of the heater were fall.  A few times a month, bleach took over when my grandpa took over the kitchen to make his coffee cups and undershirts white again in the same sink of sudsy water, infuriating my grandma for the intrusion into her kitchen. Before company came, Formula 409 led the charge for a few days, annoying the hell out of my grandpa with a different, wider sort of intrusion. I accepted all intrusions as interesting blips in our regularly scheduled smelliness.

Yesterday, my mother stepped into the camper that is my Christmas gift and remembered her time living in an RV because of the way the new-old camper smells.  The same mustiness that lingered in her rotten ex-husband’s 1973 Travco blared unabated in my 1979 Impala, but my associations with that new-to-me kind of mildew are better than hers.

I smell hope, and potential, and the chance to take a careful crowbar to what needs to go.  She didn’t have that freedom, but she’s given it to me.