Drafting a Kraftsman House

(Some of you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about, but for those who will…)

When funds are limited, you have no choice but to work with what you have. Especially if the options out there aren’t what you might have hoped, all you can do is hard research and take the best that you can find.

Maybe she’s got a big old tree branch poking through the master-bedroom ceiling. Maybe he stomped somebody one time in a fit of pique. Maybe he’s little, maybe she stinks, but he’s fast and she’s sturdy and they’re what you have to choose from. So you do your homework, you look down deep into their souls – and your own – and you try to be as realistic as possible about your expectations of them.

Then you bank the rest out on the future.

You insist he lose the handguns, make her give up the detritus of owners past. You devise a regimen for building them both up and install supports in places where they’re needed most. You let them know you’re happy to have found them, but that you won’t put up with any shit.

And if the shit comes anyway, you prepare yourself to walk away.

Welcome, Meriweather. May maturity come before decrepitude, and may your acquisition prove to be a wiser thing than ours ever was.