Out with the old, in with the new; selling and buying vehicles
“’59 Cadillac, ’57 Chevrolet.”
David Allen Coe sang about his favorite cars and motorcycles as did many musicians.
Bruce Springsten, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Dwight Yoakam also sang about Cadillacs and the blues man K. C. Douglas was “Crazy ‘bout a Murcury” back in ’49.
The bottom line is that everyone loves their cars and they will obviously sing it from the mountain tops.
I think all of us have that special car we loved to drive at some point in our life, usually a first car, or the vehicle you and your friends would drive around in ’til all hours of the night meeting up with all of your other friends.
For me, one of my favorite modes of transportation was a ’76 metallic green Ford van.
The “Green Van” as everyone called it was empty on the inside but loaded with fun.
At one point, I played bus driver. There were a lot of my friends that hated riding the school bus and paid good money to arrive at the front doors of Thomas Stone high school in style. Well, maybe not in style but at least not on the bus.
I was able to cram about ten of my closest friends in the van and make a good chunk of money at the end of the week.
Then one day, my father told me that it was time to sell the “Green Van.”
My heart stopped for a split second and I think a tear emerged from the corner of my eye.
The end of an era.
Recently, I sold a Jeep that Leigh and I have had for about eight years.
While I was cleaning all of our personal items out of the truck, I started to get a little bit of an empty spot inside of me.
This truck drove us back and forth to Boston for many years. When we moved to Maryland, it comfortably delivered us on either end of our weekend trips to North Carolina.
The Jeep trailered loads of furniture, motorcycles, and bicycles all over the east coast. I even raced another SUV around the DC beltway at one in the morning. Not a proud moment.
This truck saw two newlyweds turn into homeowners and then into parents.
That’s a lot of stories tucked into the crevices of that truck.
We are now searching for a replacement vehicle that is a little bigger to help haul our expanding family around comfortably. Although giving up a vehicle can be a somewhat sad event, the excitement of a new truck can overcome that feeling.
Our life gets to make a slight upgrade. Trucks eight years ago pale in comparison to those of today.
The children might have the opportunity to have some built in entertainment which will provide Leigh and me with a bit of quiet time on a long trip.
I am sure there will be many family memories that will be made in whatever we buy. Weekend road trips, football tailgating in the fall and trips to the beach in the summer.
When my son is old enough to take care of the new truck and change the oil, he will have his own vehicle to haul all of his friends around in, stay out all night and shed a tear when I sell it.
Bryan Pinkey can be found searching for his old “Green Van” or at bpinkey@nccox.com.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
8-27-09
Home is where the heart is, if renovations haven’t sucked the life out first
My wife and I fancy ourselves as closet designers and house flipping geniuses.
We watch a lot of HGTV. In an attempt to protect my manliness, Leigh turns it on and I somehow get sucked in, if that makes a difference.
In Boston and Maryland, Leigh and I were addicted to working on our property. We didn’t have very much money to work with so the game was simple. We maxed ourselves out, working with what we had, doing as much as we could by ourselves and then sell for as much profit as possible.
We did this a couple of times and had a lot of fun and learned a whole lot more.
We didn’t have children at that time so Leigh and I were able to focus all of our time and energy toward details.
The first place in Boston was a nightmare.
At first glance, this condo was beautiful. About 80 years ago, the nine foot walls were constructed and the seven foot wood wainscot was installed. All of the wood doors were solid and the floors were the same.
This place was love at first sight. The only problem was that the kitchen and bathroom had to be gutted.
Sounds like the start to a good HGTV show.
Unfortunately, we weren’t being filmed or paid for our adventure. It would have been a great show if it was.
When we raised the sledge hammer in the air and let it slam into the tile on the bathroom floor, the floor dropped about three inches around the toilet. We had a toilet that looked like it was floating above the busted floor.
We had just opened the proverbial can-of-worms except ours smelled like a sewer and cash.
There was only one thing to do. Out with the porcelain convenience, out with the sink and out with the tub.
The beams below were exposed and we found a window in the wall at the shower that had been boarded and tiled over and only latched shut. This hidden window had been leaking and allowing water to run down the wall for who-knows how many years.
The beams rotted where they joined the wall and had “slipped” past the brick ledge that had been holding them in their place since the 1920s.
It took us three months from the day we bought the place until we were brushing our teeth and taking showers to finish the project. We didn’t even think of starting the kitchen for another year.
Today, we are living in our house that we built with our own two hands. It is ours and I made sure all of the beams were secured and I didn’t install any “hidden” windows in the bathrooms.
One day we might decide to tackle another fixer-upper and maybe even try to turn it for a profit, but for now Leigh and I will be content watching HGTV shows that exploit other homeowners in dealing with their pitfalls and money traps.
We now catch ourselves coaching the unsuspecting owners on the TV shows like armchair quarterbacks on Sunday afternoon.
“Don’t buy that house, that hill in the back yard is going to cause drainage problems in your crawl space.”
“Inspect that wall behind the stove, there is a reason the drywall has a big crack in it.”
We know it all now, we are experienced-professionals, homeowner extraordinaires. With our wisdom, there is nothing that can stop us from being ace renovators.
One important thing we learned is not to jump into that arena again without reviewing the “tape” for many, many years to come.
Bryan Pinkey can be found charging his drill... and putting it back in the case or at bpinkey@nccox.com.
My wife and I fancy ourselves as closet designers and house flipping geniuses.
We watch a lot of HGTV. In an attempt to protect my manliness, Leigh turns it on and I somehow get sucked in, if that makes a difference.
In Boston and Maryland, Leigh and I were addicted to working on our property. We didn’t have very much money to work with so the game was simple. We maxed ourselves out, working with what we had, doing as much as we could by ourselves and then sell for as much profit as possible.
We did this a couple of times and had a lot of fun and learned a whole lot more.
We didn’t have children at that time so Leigh and I were able to focus all of our time and energy toward details.
The first place in Boston was a nightmare.
At first glance, this condo was beautiful. About 80 years ago, the nine foot walls were constructed and the seven foot wood wainscot was installed. All of the wood doors were solid and the floors were the same.
This place was love at first sight. The only problem was that the kitchen and bathroom had to be gutted.
Sounds like the start to a good HGTV show.
Unfortunately, we weren’t being filmed or paid for our adventure. It would have been a great show if it was.
When we raised the sledge hammer in the air and let it slam into the tile on the bathroom floor, the floor dropped about three inches around the toilet. We had a toilet that looked like it was floating above the busted floor.
We had just opened the proverbial can-of-worms except ours smelled like a sewer and cash.
There was only one thing to do. Out with the porcelain convenience, out with the sink and out with the tub.
The beams below were exposed and we found a window in the wall at the shower that had been boarded and tiled over and only latched shut. This hidden window had been leaking and allowing water to run down the wall for who-knows how many years.
The beams rotted where they joined the wall and had “slipped” past the brick ledge that had been holding them in their place since the 1920s.
It took us three months from the day we bought the place until we were brushing our teeth and taking showers to finish the project. We didn’t even think of starting the kitchen for another year.
Today, we are living in our house that we built with our own two hands. It is ours and I made sure all of the beams were secured and I didn’t install any “hidden” windows in the bathrooms.
One day we might decide to tackle another fixer-upper and maybe even try to turn it for a profit, but for now Leigh and I will be content watching HGTV shows that exploit other homeowners in dealing with their pitfalls and money traps.
We now catch ourselves coaching the unsuspecting owners on the TV shows like armchair quarterbacks on Sunday afternoon.
“Don’t buy that house, that hill in the back yard is going to cause drainage problems in your crawl space.”
“Inspect that wall behind the stove, there is a reason the drywall has a big crack in it.”
We know it all now, we are experienced-professionals, homeowner extraordinaires. With our wisdom, there is nothing that can stop us from being ace renovators.
One important thing we learned is not to jump into that arena again without reviewing the “tape” for many, many years to come.
Bryan Pinkey can be found charging his drill... and putting it back in the case or at bpinkey@nccox.com.
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