Dead mice were the least of it. In the walls and under the floor lurked Decay and a lot less solid stuff than we had hoped for. The previous owner, probably from negligence or haste rather than deviousness, had clapped a new subfloor down right on top of the old rotting one, like a bandaid over a cancerous mole. I understand this impulse. I even sympathize with it. I mean, once I saw what was festering down there I wanted to slap a board over it too.

 

Unfortunately, if we were going to live full time in the trailer, we couldn’t hide our problems under plywood. Plywood does not cover a multitude of sins. I say unfortunately because, come on, it’s like a ton of work and also, it was going to shove the project end date right into winter – who knew, maybe right off the 2016 calendar. 

 

We couldn’t delve into the fun of rebuilding a floor plan and arranging furniture. We couldn’t even think about having a floor – or subfloor – until we had ripped the thing to pieces. To use an unpleasant metaphor, the previous owner had removed the guts. We had to rip the skin off and clean up the rotting bones (*extra bonus fact, “skins” and “bones” are the actual terms used). 

 

So we did the only practical thing we could do: reset our expectations and put our grown-up work pants on. 

 

 

In the next fact-filled episode, I’ll delve into the practicals of our remodel, well, mostly anyway…