All the Way Home
Building a Family in a Falling-Down House
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4.5 • 21 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
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
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. But nothing seemed right . . . until he spotted the beautiful, decaying Guilded Era mansion. A former rubber robber baron’s domain, the once grand house does need some repair . . . okay it’s a dump. 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. He’s a committed do it yourselfer who fears a life without struggle—and Home Depot.
All 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. 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. 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This Old House meets The Money Pit in journalist Giffels's search for an affordable home. The Giffels family settles on a run-down, soon to be condemned early 20th-century mansion, but when he arrives at the mansion to begin his work aided eventually by scores of workers he finds leaks in several areas of the roof, crumbling brick, dry-rotted wood, warped floors, vermin droppings and nests, as well as a beautiful old staircase, a fireplace in the bedroom and gorgeous brass hinges and other fixtures. Convinced that he can recover the former glory of this house with a little elbow grease and perseverance, Giffels sets out on his mission fueled by the strains of R.E.M. and the Clash to renovate the house one room at a time. Giffels fights a losing battle as he seeks to remove squirrels, mice and a raccoon from his abode his attempt to scare away squirrels from the attic by using an electric guitar is especially amusing and he discovers that every victory carries with it a failure somewhere else. Sometimes humorous, Giffels's memoir comments sadly on one man's stubbornness and selfishness (even his wife's miscarriages don't stop him from his work) in his quest to make a house a home.
