To know why I started this blog and corresponding YouTube channel is, in a way, to know me. The following is my best attempt at expressing why my life took the unexpected turn that has led to staring a blog and documenting a home renovation that I am clearly not qualified to complete. This is my story.

You should hear the Law and Order “dum dum” right about there.

In the fall of 2016 I was lucky enough to find an old American Foursquare house that I fell in love with. I had been looking for a house for a few years, and had either not found one that I liked, or I lost the bid on a foreclosure. I had not even been looking in this particular neighborhood until I stumbled across a small house with a dock that was right on the Ohio River. Ultimately that sale fell apart due to way too many issues coming to light during the inspection. This had me discouraged, so it took me a few weeks to start looking at houses again. Stumbling across the first place with the dock taught me a few lessons, it also opened up Sewickley PA as a potential neighborhood.

Sewickley, PA

Sewickley is about 15 miles from downtown Pittsburgh…or in useful term, a 20 min Uber ride.

Sewickley (coming from the Native American word for “Sweet Water”) is an old historic village on the Ohio River 15 miles downstream from Pittsburgh. The majority of the homes here are older, most have already been fixed up. After the house with dock fell through, I regrouped and started looking in Sewickley, I ran across this place immediately. I decided to call the agent, and set up a time to walk through it. I knew that I had to go see it, if nothing else, I could prove it was just as bad as the previous house…

As I first saw her…

This is a picture from the original listing which sparked my interest to go look at it.

The first time I walked through the front door, I knew my life would never be the same. To me, a house can be much more than where you store your junk. This comes from how I was raised. You see, I grew up on a farm in Iowa. Most family farms are passed down from one generation to the next. That seemly small detail makes a huge difference in many of us “farm raised” folks. It instills a deep connection with the land your parents and grandparents farmed and the buildings and tools you grew up around.

My father’s side of the family was typical in this sense. As times changed, and the family farm become less and less common, we had to adapt and change too. My father, like many others, was pushed out of full-time farming after the farm crisis of the early 1980’s. However, he was able hold on to the land that he felt the closest connection with, and since 2002 he has been converting the barn that he loved to drive by as a child, into his home. The barn has everything my dad needs right in one spot. He even built his wood-shop on the first floor, opposite side as the living area. In the winter, he can sip his morning coffee while watching the deer recede back to the safety of the woods. In the summer, he can sit on the deck in the evenings and enjoy the cool air and peace and quite. It suits him.

There were some farmers on my mother’s side of the family as well, but that was before her generation. However, the same sentiment existed with her side. In fact it was worse! My mother has yet to have met so much as a single family fork that she could imagine parting with. The first time my sisters cut their hair short, she saved their braids! Personally I find that sort of thing creepy, and tease her relentlessly. For her, she looks at the braids and reminisces about her little girls running around the farm in the 1970’s. To call my mother sentimental would be a gross understatement. So it’s no surprise that she had tears in their eyes when my Grandma Pat's cottage "The Cottage" had to be sold. It was not winterized and getting to be too much for my Grandma. At that time we had no way of knowing that a decade later one of my mother’s oldest friends would buy The Cottage and retire there with her husband, so luckily, it has been back in the family for years now.

This family history lesson was simply to paint the picture of the type of house I was looking for. A house that has a timeless style that can be passed down for generations to come. That was what I was looking for…or at least that’s what I knew I should be looking for once I saw this house. It’s also why I felt so strongly that I needed to buy this house, someday I would be able to host the big holiday gatherings that I remember so fondly from my childhood. I have missed a lot of the holidays as an adult due to my military obligations and other career choices. Which is fine, I knew what I was getting into when I sign up. That being said, as my parents get older and niece and nephews grow up, its become more of a priority for me to create more of those memories. Also, if I have a big family down the road, this isn’t a house I will outgrow.

This house was exactly that sort of place to the previous residents, who had originally purchased the house from their aunt in 1950. I am not sure when their aunt bought the house, but at one time the extended family owned this house and the ones on both sides as well. I am possibly only the third owner to be in this 100 plus year old house. I LOVE that!

DISCLAIMER: It should be noted that I WAS on drugs at the time I viewed the house. Now hold on, it’s not what you think. I get drug tested for both of my jobs constantly… it wasn’t like THAT. I am extremely allergic to poison ivy, you would think that I could spot it a mile away; ironically… not the case. I had been moving a deer stand at my sister’s acreage and had no idea the tree I moved it to was covered in the stuff. Hindsight being 20/20, literally hacking at a big vine (or Ivy) wrapped around the tree should have been a pretty good indication, but I digress. When I really get into any kind of itch-weed the only thing that helps is steroids. If you don’t have any experience with them let me be the first to tell you…whoa! They don’t kind of mess with your emotions. They make you straight-jacket kinds of crazy! It can be either manic or depressive. I never can predict which way it will go…usually I feel like I am five year old in a continual state of burying my puppy. Well this time was a bit different; I was like a coke-head at a party. I have A.D.D. to start with so I was completely obnoxious to be around. If I had just met you, 5 min later I was planning on how we would create the most successful earthworm business, or some other horrible idea. Contrasting to that I was reflecting on my family and all of the holidays spent with them as a child. This was also a very sad time for my family. The day before I looked at the house I had received news that my cousin, Kate, threw a blood clot after a seemly routine operation. She was in a coma. When I was a kid I use to spent a week or so with Katie’s family in the summer time, usually after they came back to Iowa to visit Grandma Pat at The Cottage. All that being considered, it’s safe to say I was a little emotional at the time I looked at the house.

Walking inside it was as if I was meeting a long lost relative for the first time. When I crossed the threshold my eyes were seeing a new floor plan, but my nose smelled The Cottage. The more I saw the stronger this sense became. Immediately, my mind started imaging other layers over what I was actually looking at. I could vividly see how I would open a few walls up to expose the original design as well as update it with current amenities. I was envisioning my brother and sisters and their families all gathered around a huge dining table with kids overflowing at the island (kids table). The agent had zero clue the craziness happening in my head, which was shocking since I am not know for having a poker face. I think he was just sick of showing the house at this point…little did he know it was sold the moment I stepped inside. Once we were on the third floor he was looking at the plaster falling off the ceiling and reminding me, AGAIN, that the sellers were selling it AS IS. As in, they aren’t going to fix that damn falling plaster. “PREFECT! Don’t touch a thing!” is what I was thinking.

The house was originally a 6 bedroom 1 bath. It was listed as a 4 bedroom 1.5 bath when I looked at it. The old gas heaters on the third floor had been removed/disconnected many years ago. We were standing in one of the 3rd floor bedrooms that I had already decided would one day be combined with the other bedroom on that floor to make my master suite. One bedroom would remain a bedroom, while the other would be split in 1/2 to allow for a nice sized master bathroom, and a huge walk in closet. Oh, that old claw foot tub I spotter on the 2nd floor? I had just the spot for that overlooking the Ohio River, never-mind the 3 sets of railroad tracks between me and the river, that didn’t bother me at all. In a matter of a few minutes I could tell you where I was going to put the new shower, the tub, how the closet would have an old glass storefront door, what kind of sink I’d install. Hell, I could even picture myself coming home from work to see my future beautiful wife (I was completely single) soaking in that tub after her stressful day. In this moment of my drug induced manic state due to my crappy genetically inferior fair skin issues, of course, she was the perfect woman. She fit the house, and me to a T. She was smart, athletic, and had pigment (see Richard Dawkins; The Selfish Gene…I want a wife who can tan! I don’t want some pale skinned babies who buy houses because they can’t handle their poison ivy medication). I was picturing the perfect house, and life.

The agent gave me a few minutes alone on the third floor. Thank god, because I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t in love with the house any longer. Standing there on that muggy August afternoon, I felt as if all aspects of my life were FINALLY falling into place to allow me to get a slight glimpse of the life that I could have; the life that I owed to myself. You see, the previous years had been full of accomplishments like; getting selected for USAF pilot training, then failing out of USAF pilot training in record time; Getting Married, then getting divorced, basically twice… with same woman…; and lets not forget being so broke I had borrow money from my parents just to have food to eat…at 30 years old…more than once…So yeah, basically life had gone exactly as I planned… Oh and in case you were wondering, no, a combo like that doesn’t exactly get the opposite sex battling for your attention either, even if your Facebook page is just as full of shit as you are, and only showing all the good times, like catching a fish or getting drinks with friends.

It had actually been a few years since those really dark times, and it took a really long time to get back to who I was after all of that. Sometimes when you have your head down just trying to get out of whatever bad situation you have found yourself in, you can forget to spend time on all the things in life that really bring you joy, you just don’t have time or energy. So this was more than just a house to me. Imagine all the holes in dozens of layers of Swiss cheese aligning to reveal a prefect....chance. What I saw through those holes was a better life, one not focused around the rat race that had become my reality. I saw myself having fun; creating little hidden spaces for storage, doing elaborate inlays just because I could, making spots for Murphy beds, and built-ins LOTS of built-ins, and sharing the whole thing online. I even saw a future where I could somehow make a career out of it all. I felt that if I didn't start running through those layers of cheese with everything I had, I would miss my chance forever. I would be stuck working for someone else my whole life. I saw an old man filled with regret just wishing he could go back and chase his dreams. I imagined my cousin hooked up to machines in the hospital. She had spent her life chasing her career aspirations. She didn’t ask for permission with her dreams, she just went for them. If I could talk to her one last time, what would she tell me to do? What I saw was a future me. That day changed my life. It could possibly be the most important day of my life. I have been working towards that dream ever since.

I figure, I can't be the only person who has ever felt like this before. Worst case, future generations will have an idea of what the house, and I looked like before we were majestic and decrepit. It's been a slow process, and as of writing this, not much has really changed, not that most folks would notice anyway. That doesn't matter to me though; I am in it for the long run. I have to be, this house is part of my family now. This house has led to the happiest time of my life; I can't thank her enough.

The need to document the whole process. This sounds more romantic than what it boils down to. I had zero experience with filming and editing videos when I started. The many hours of trying to learn how to film, edit, start a blog, and even just trying not to seem awkward in front of the camera (still not mastered) have been stressful, but absolutely worth it. I hope this gives you some insight into why I am doing what I am doing here, and if you’d like to follow along, I’d love to continue to share this with you.

Danny Zickefoose