Chapter 43

June was given the authority to make offers on the other properties we wanted to purchase. Dad, Grandpa and I had spent the last part of the week with her walking through the listings, getting a feeling for which ones were worthwhile, and which ones weren’t. We took some suggestions from her such as when we had marked down a listing but it was central to a cluster of houses. Those she recommended we buy anyway, even if we wouldn’t see as much profit on them, due to their condition, and the effort it would take to rework them.

Dad would take pictures and make preliminary drawings for each property we visited. I expected that when we got home he’d be spending a lot of time in the CAD/CAM program for Architects. That would be a fairly hefty bill for MR&R when it came due, but it would be worth it. We were lucky to have June on board with us as she knew that with these houses, so long as we maintained the exterior structure, we could do almost anything we wanted to in the interior. Of course, we were only two years removed from Seattle, so Dad was still on top of things in that arena as well. At the end of the week, June had a list, and we all flew back to Georgia.

The first house for which Dad drew up plans was mine and Paige’s. He spent an evening with us, asking what we’d like to see, where we thought certain things should be located. He tried not to laugh when Paige demanded an exact duplicate of his master suite and bathroom, but he failed. I in turn asked for two additional bedrooms much like the ones that Paige and I currently occupied. We wanted the same kitchen conveniences although we were willing to allow for their relocation. By the end of our consultation, he had all of our requirements. It might have been simpler to ask him to fit our current place into the confines of the building we had purchased.

Three days later we had preliminary drawings. I sat down with Paige and showed her how to read them. She had a difficult time envisioning actual room sizes for various elements, so I told her to close her eyes and led her throughout our house until we’d find something that was essentially similar in floor space. That made sense for her, although I noticed she lightly penciled in notes so she could make the mental transition between the two places. We approved the plans with only minor changes, and Dad started cranking out the documents that would need to be submitted to the Planning Commission in our new city.

May flew around and suddenly it was graduation time. In addition to drawing our house, Dad had gifted his mom and dad with a set of plans for their West Coast getaway. He also prepared Frank and June’s specifications and they too were provided in exchange for all the work June had been doing. It was a fair trade after all was said and done.

June had used up the bulk of the capital in the holding company and she had been more successful than we had dreamed. MMR now owned sixty-four properties outright of the one hundred or so houses that lined the street we had driven down. The rest were either not worth owning, or weren’t for sale. The first, other investors could purchase, the second, sometimes, were still well maintained and had established families in them. I made a note to let those families know what we had planned, so they could cash in on the resurgence in property values if they so desired.

Paige and I graduated from Jefferson High School in Macon, GA at the end of May. We did the obligatory round of parties, letting ourselves be seen and saying goodbye to good friends. Gloria and Matt were still together, and this relationship looked like it was going to go the distance. The Monday following graduation weekend, Paige and I were planning to leave for Seattle. Our initial plan was to take both trucks and leave the completed 457 behind. Mom and Dad looked forward to a road trip in late summer to bring it to us. That wouldn’t happen until we had renovated the garage and had a secure place to store it.

The morning that we were leaving, I couldn’t find my truck. It had been parked in the garage overnight, and I had pulled it out at about five o’clock as the sun was rising so I could load tools and other miscellaneous items. Now though, it was missing. I noticed Dad walking the path back from the equipment shed area and asked him if he knew what had happened.

“Wait for Evie and Paige,” was all he would say.

So we went back inside for breakfast. That meal was poignant for me. This table was where Paige and I had read our devotions together, many times over the last year and a half. This table held memories of my second and third families, those being Evie and Paige and Grandma and Grandpa respectively. This table had seen its shares of failures and successes when it came to recipes, thankfully more of the latter. The four of us ate one more time around our home table. After this, it would still be there, but it wouldn’t belong to me or Paige anymore. It was scary, exhilarating, sad and happy all at the same time.

When the meal was done and devotions had been read, Dad and Evie prayed with me and Paige for a long time, reducing everyone at one point or another to tears. Dad intoned a final blessing from Numbers 6.

“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you, and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Amen.”

We each needed to use the box of tissues after that. When the sniffling had stopped, Dad told Paige to drive me around to the equipment entrance and then to the shops – my truck was waiting back there.

We followed directions. When she pulled into the yard out back, I saw two trailers sitting there. One of them was clearly the one I had been accustomed to seeing behind Dad’s diesel forever, but the other was newer. Dad waited until I had gotten out and walked to the side, where some painter’s paper covered lettering. He encouraged me to pull it off, revealing the stenciled side proclaiming the trailer to belong to McKenzie Renovations and Restorations. I looked in the back and everything that Paige and I were taking to Seattle was packed in there, the beds of the pickups empty. I also noticed that Paige was cleaning out her truck, carrying all the little personal items that had collected there while she owned it, over to the cab of mine.

“It’s already sold,” Paige told me, handing the keys to her mother. “We’ll find something for me to drive in Seattle. In the meantime, I get to ride with you, big guy.”

I pulled Evie into a hug. “Thanks, Mom. I love you, and I’m happy that you became a part of our lives.” Paige followed me and we left her a wreck.

“Dad. Home is where the heart is. You told me that last summer, and we made it real between the four of us. My home, now, is Paige, but as the two of you are part of the two of us, our home will always be with you as well. Take care of Mom for us, and take care of yourself as well.”

Paige finished up with Dad and then we walked toward the passenger side of the truck. I opened the door for my girl, she stepped up and in, the door closed behind her and I walked around to the driver’s side. I took one last look at what we were leaving, hopped in and started up. With the trailer, it was a slow drive down the gravel road until we hit the asphalt. I stopped there, took Paige’s hand and we prayed for a safe journey. Then we were off.

Grandpa and Grandma were caravanning with us, taking their pickup all the way across the country. The plan was that they and we would stay at the Rugetti’s place while we worked first on our house and then Grandma and Grandpa’s place. If we got lucky, we hoped to have the new/old Rugetti mansion finished by the end of summer as well. Grandpa was going to be riding herd with me on the two crews we planned to put together. To that end, Pete and the boys had put out feelers among the worthwhile construction workers they knew, and we had laborers waiting on us.

Our trip took five days of driving and plenty of stops for gas, snacks, meals and sleep. I don’t know how the other two fared, but I had a DJ in the seat beside me who held my hand for half the trip when she wasn’t creating playlists. Still, we were tired when we pulled into Seattle on Friday evening and parked in front of our temporary home. Frank and June came out with Erin to greet us and help transfer clothing and personal items into their house.

As there’s no rest for the weary or the wicked, we slept long enough that first night to ease our fatigue, Grandpa and I getting up at five and waking a reluctant Paige, eating a quick breakfast and then driving through Seattle streets to our new neighborhood. Our house came with a detached garage that was originally a combination carriage house and stable. That was the first order of business.

Dad had gotten Pete to submit plans and pull the first set of permits for us so we had construction power and permission to begin both our demolition and reconstruction/remodeling. Pete had also coordinated for the lead remediation on the first three houses, and that was done already. Before we had started, he had also contracted to have the plaster tested and it came back that there was no asbestos, so that was good news.

Paige was given a hardhat, goggles, gloves, respirator, hazard suit for the lead that could still be present, and a tool belt, and told to start pulling the plaster lath off of the interior walls of the house. Grandpa and I gutted the garage the first day, hauling the debris out to our dumpster that showed up around ten. We inspected, then reframed the interior of the building, quit for lunch, and then broke out the cement floor.

When we were done, Paige informed me that there was a big pile already inside, and she needed some help to move it out of the way. We spent an hour doing that, then returned to our individual tasks. I called a halt around four, mentioning that it was my goal each day to spend the last few minutes onsite cleaning up so that we could start fresh the next morning. That set the tone for the job.

Our crew showed up the following Monday, and things really started to rock and roll. McKenzie Renovations and Restorations learned a lot on our place that we were then able to apply to the other houses we would be restoring or renovating. One of the things that came as a bit of a surprise to us was that the old septic systems had never been removed. That was noted for the other builds.

In a month and a half of careful management we gutted the house, rebuilt the interior to code and to Dad’s plans, put in all the appliances that Paige and I (and Evie) had selected, painted, stained, floored and carpeted, re-roofed, reinsulated and resealed everything.

Both crews were working on it which is why it went so quickly. That was our intention for the next two as well, sort of a learning curve. After that, each crew would have their own project, and when they finished one, they’d keep moving. At the end of July, the occupancy certificate on our new home was given, Paige and I moved into separate rooms sharing a bathroom, Grandma and Grandpa took the in-law suite and unexpectedly, Frank, June and Erin took the Master and one other bedroom. They had sold their house faster than they had anticipated and joined us until we had their place next door finished. The grandparents were gracious, telling them that we’d get the crews to work on that mansion next. Personally I suspected that it was because they enjoyed being around me and Paige and weren’t in a hurry to move out.

Grandma and June kept everyone fed, and I began to feel the drain of my oversized meals on the pocketbook – something Dad had always taken care of. I wasn’t worried because I still had plenty in savings and Dad’s business was bringing in a steady cash flow that I could draw on as well, not that I needed to. It also helped that we’d be getting paid for the work that MR&R was doing on the Rugetti residence.

As I had intended, the first week in June that we were here I invited the homeowners in the neighborhood to come take a look at what we were doing. We had a barbeque for them and their families out in our huge backyard and told them that we were part of a group that had purchased around sixty percent of the neighborhood in spring.

They, in turn, were finally able to put a face to the Holding company that had made such an impact. Families were extremely interested when I told them that in addition to being the owners and builders, these first three houses we were working on were also going to be occupied by us. That put them more at ease. They could see, after our revelation, that we had a stake in making sure that the area prospered. Lastly, I mentioned that as we improved the other properties we owned, we’d be selling them, and I named a low seven figure number that would be the initial goal price. I urged them to stay in until comps came up to where they could afford to sell here and purchase another home outright if they so desired.

Talk about goodwill after that. We had almost no vandalism at any of our builds and it was amazing how many of our crew were on a first name basis with the residents of our boulevard. At the end of summer, we had young guys on the crew with families approaching us about some of the remaining properties we hadn’t selected. I referred them to June and she filled them in on the problems we had noted during walk-through. For guys like that, it was a good investment, and more than one place was purchased while still at rock-bottom prices. They started working on their own homes on Saturdays and Sundays. When I could, I helped out, never accepting pay from them.

Early August we lost Paige to her university volleyball team. She and I had visited the car lots prior to that and had picked up a nice used Camry for her to drive around town and to school. She found that she had more muscles, after working construction for a month and a half, that translated well to hitting and jumping ability.

By the end of August, the Rugetti place was finished, paid for and landscaped. Mom and Dad drove the 427 cross-country in time to help move June and Frank next door, and then they occupied the master suite in our house. We got questions about that but said we weren’t ready to begin using it until we had stood up in front of friends and witnesses and pledged our troth to each other. While Dad was here, I walked him through the two houses and showed him what we had done. He was impressed and gave me the highest compliment he could, which was to say that he couldn’t have done any better.

School started for me in September and it cut into the time I was able to supervise our employees. We, that is, Grandpa and I, had been smart though, and we had spent two months evaluating leaders that could each take on a crew, training them to report to either of us. We turned both groups loose on the other McKenzie place and then stood back to see how they did. There were a few rough spots that he or I needed to handle, but by the time they finished there, I was confident that I could juggle managing the business, going to school, and partnering with Paige in our relationship as well as attending all her home games.

We both adjusted to our schedule, Paige had an awesome first season, we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Rugettis, and we flew back to Georgia for a week at Christmas. Mom and Dad were happy to have us there, and I’m sure almost as happy to see us leave. Gloria and Matt had taken a big step and had gotten engaged while we were home for that holiday. Both of them were at UGA and enjoying it a lot. Matt confessed to me that he had grown tired of all the guys hitting on his girlfriend, as had Gloria. Part of the engagement was commitment to each other, and part to let everyone know in a very visible way that she was taken.