Achieving dreams takes effort and patience.
Achieving dream houses takes effort, patience, intestinal fortitude, humor and a masochistic tendency.
So Nicole and John Rader of Orlando, Fla., found out.
For restoring their 1920s Colonial Revival “without sacrificing its soul,” the Raders recently won $5,000 and a new GMC Sierra from This Old House magazine.
Plus, they created the home they never plan to leave.
“We are here for life,” Nicole says of the four-level home she and her husband renovated and expanded to create 3,800-square-feet of colonial-casual living space.
The magazine chose the Raders’ house from among thousands of projects entered in this year’s Reader Remodel contest. The home is featured in the magazine’s July issue ( -remodel).
Because I live in the same town, I just had to stop by and see for myself how this couple had pulled off the 10-year, multiphase construction project, despite three hurricanes, a sewage flood, a burst water pipe and the arrival of two children.
Like most people who survive perilous adventures — like walking across hot coals or climbing Mount Everest — the Raders jump at the chance to talk about their ordeal.
As we sit around their vintage kitchen table, they talk over each other, sharing “remember when” stories and remodeling recollections so fresh that I can still smell the sawdust and hear the cussing.
The Raders bought their home in 2001. Married just two years, they had already tackled one home remodel.
“We weren’t in the market,” says John, a marketing executive. But when Nicole, who sells real estate, saw this lake-front fixer in a family- friendly neighborhood, well, suddenly they were.
“It looked like a moose lodge,” John says of his first impressions of the home. The main level had dark wood walls, small windows and low ceilings. The previous owners hadn’t done much updating.
Nicole could see past all that, and John had faith.
“She has the vision,” he says. “I add the sweat.”
As she summoned estimates, he summoned friends to help him demo one room at a time.
“We’d finish one area, then pause to have a baby,” Nicole recalls. The couple’s children are now 7 and 5.
The distressed walls surrounding us were the result of a fortunate mistake. Nicole painted over the original brown cypress paneling, then, in the middle of the night, realized she shouldn’t have. The next day she tried scraping the paint off; the result looks amazing.
Another fortuitous finding lay behind the 7-foot ceiling in what is now the dining room. Three feet of open space let them raise and vault the ceiling.
They also ran into not-so- good surprises, ones they hadn’t budgeted for: a completely fizzled electrical system, baths that needed all-new plumbing and rats. “I came face to face with a giant rat in a dark crawl space,” John says.
Nicole remembers it well: “He screamed like a girl.”
“But I got the last word,” John says.
Another time, Nicole scored a practically free sofa for the master suite.
“Only it wouldn’t fit through the door.”
“Next thing, I see this forklift she’s hired coming down the street,” John says.
“Which John has to drive for liability reasons.”
In the end, he “had to hoist the sofa into the second-floor bedroom when an exterior wall was down.”
“The lesson,” says Nicole, “It’s only a deal if it fits.”
Then there was the night a heavy-set carpet installer sat on their upstairs toilet, broke the seal, then flushed.
“Filthy toilet water spewed through the ceiling and all over my clothes in the closet below. It was the grossest thing. And we couldn’t get a plumber because Hurricane Charley was hitting.”
But they managed to find the humor in the situation.
“If you can’t laugh at times like (that), you’ll go crazy,” John says.
And what could possibly motivate them to keep going?
As John searches for an answer, Nicole supplies it.
“Easy,” she says. “We love our house.”
Syndicated columnist and speaker Marni Jameson is the author of “House of Havoc” and “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo Press). Contact her through .
Remodel like a winner
Nicole and John Rader got points in This Old House’s 2011 Read Remodel Contest for keeping a tight rein on their budget. Here’s how they saved:
They took their time. Four phases over 10 years helped them spread out costs, fine tune their plan and find bargains.
They hunted down deals. They purchased floor samples of kitchen appliances for half price, and scored a dozen pairs of outdoor shudders from a salvage yard, hinges and all, for $300. “I always get at least five estimates,” said Nicole, who often turns to eBay for furniture and vintage art.
They stayed focused. They prioritized what they wanted to do and didn’t veer from the plan. “When someone says, ‘While we’re at it, why don’t we . . . ,’ costs explode,” John says.
They paid for rough plans. They consulted experts for big ideas, then filled in details and executed work themselves.
They reused materials. Any bead board or old brick they tore out found another use in the house; they also re-purposed every original window and interior door.
They listened to others. We always asked visitors what they thought. “Outsiders often see things you don’t,” John says. A friend solved the puzzle of how to lay out their master bathroom so it could accommodate a cool, salvaged, claw-foot tub.
They mooched. They lived with friends and family during the worst spells, and once used a kind neighbor’s washer and dryer for three months.
