The Hard Way on Purpose by David Giffels

That only becomes apparent to himself when he attempts to remove paint from every single door hinge in the house. When he buys the 1913 mansion on North Portage Path (Akron, Ohio) there is every indication he has bit off more than he can chew.

But, buy the house he does.Giffels, a self described handyman, needs projects. In fact, when Giffels first tours the house there is a woman, perched amid the disaster. Who buys a house they describe with adjectives and nouns such as these: rusty, dusty, decay, debris, ruin, smelly, stained, treacherous, flaking, rotted, grime, filthy, cluttered, damaged, wreckage, decomposed, dark, cracked, dingy, chilly, ugly, broken, dirty, scratched, soot, dangerous, rotten, warped, collapsed, cramped, broken, discolored, disintegrated, discolored, poisonous, fermenting, or crusted? You half expect to find, buried deep in the debris, a mummified body a la Bates Motel. Throughout he shows them the heart of a young man on the brink of adulthood, happily struggling with his new roles as a husband and a father-a man trying to find his way without losing himself. From outwitting squatters (both four- and two-legged) to rebuilding termite ridden walls, battling wisteria vines and finding $14,000 in Depression-era cash hidden in a bathroom wall, Giffels takes readers along on the ultimate fixer-up trip. He’s a committed do it yourselfer who fears a life without struggle-and Home Depot.Īll the Way Home follows Giffels’s funny and sometimes frustrating journey as he and his young family turns a decrepit money pit into the the home of their dreams. So what if, there’s “nothing holding this place up but memory,”-the assessment of his father, a structural engineer? It wouldn’t be perfect if it were easy, and Giffels relishes the challenge.

A former rubber robber baron’s domain, the once grand house does need some repair. until he spotted the beautiful, decaying Guilded Era mansion. With his pregnant wife and their 18-month-old son in tow, David Giffels scoured the environs of Akron, OH, in search of the perfect house. As wry as Bill Bryson’s I’m a Stranger Here Myself, as insightful as Tracy Kidder’s House, here is smart, engaging tale of one man’s stuggle to restore his family’s new home-a decrepit old mansion-and discover himself

The Hard Way on Purpose by David Giffels