A Jeep in the Kitchen
Great moments in building history: That was the way it had come in, right?
After years of watching my contractor husband remodel other people’s houses, I convinced him it was high time we bought a little nest of our own before we grew too old to renovate.
We were excited by the prospect of finding a neglected fixer-upper and transforming it. But after a few months of wandering countless neighborhoods on long summer evenings, we started to feel dejected. Each time we saw a jewel in the rough, it seemed to sell before its sign went up.
One evening, my husband and I were driving down a nice street with gaslights and large houses, obviously out of our price range. To our astonishment, we saw a dilapidated two-story house with piecemeal clapboard siding right in the middle of the block.
Certain that we had found our new address, we stopped. There was no for-sale sign in front, but a guy was looking out the open upstairs window. I yelled up to him, “Do you want to sell your house?”
To our amazement, he replied, “Hold on a minute. I’ll be right down.”
With beer and cigarette in hand, out came a genial fellow who, in a few short minutes, basically said, “Sure. How much you offering?” We asked for a tour and arranged to come back the next day because he wanted to clean up a bit.
When we saw the place, we fell in love. It was from the 1800s with a gray-stone fireplace, hardwood floors, generous rooms, and an acre of land. More important, the interior had been stripped down to the studs, then rewired and replumbed. The woodwork was dismantled and stacked in piles. Obviously, the owner’s enthusiasm for the project had waned shortly after the demolition.
It was perfect, but there was one catch. The first floor had been turned into a de facto garage, complete with spilled motor oil, mechanic’s tools scattered everywhere, and a jeep in the kitchen.
I don’t mean a Grand Cherokee, either. This was a six-wheeled vehicle that had seen action in World War II. All we needed was a bazooka and a couple of helmets, and we could rule the neighborhood.
It was hard to imagine why the jeep was in there. We asked, and the owner said that the garage had fallen down in a snowstorm. Because his cooking skills required only a can opener and a microwave, he seized the opportunity to move all his appliances out of the kitchen and transform it into a garage bay, sans lift.
Still in love, I took on the arduous task of finding a bank that would loan us money to buy a house that had a jeep instead of a kitchen. I won’t tell you how many belly laughs I got from otherwise reserved banker types. Eventually, though, I found a willing lender, on the condition that we got the jeep out.
Needless to say, my husband was feeling confident. Over the years, he had engineered some pretty creative solutions to some pretty impossible building dilemmas, so he was convinced that this particular challenge would be no different.
The next day, he stood in the kitchen, mulling over the possibilities. The homeowner suggested taking the jeep out the way it came in. His plan involved come-alongs, block and tackle, roof trusses, and the removal of three kitchen windows that faced the backyard.
My husband agreed with him at first, seeing no other option. But after checking his tape measure, he was more than a little skeptical that the jeep was going to fit through that opening.
That was the way it had come in, right?
“Sure,” the owner replied, admiring his prize possession. “One piece at a time. I assembled it right here.”
With that, we left. He wanted way too much for the house anyway.
Three months later, we bought a different house. We liked the kitchen in this house. It needed only new countertops.
Drawing by: Jackie Rogers
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