This Screwed-Up House

Updated May 22, 2006

Welcome to "This Screwed Up House", where I will be documenting the events during my largest task in home makeovers to date... my old family house which I plan to bring my own family to live in soon.

Yes, this was once a rather nice house where I spent the latter part of my childhood. A 4-bedroom, 3-bath home on two acres in a quiet, country-like setting. Of course, a lot has changed in the past 25 years once some developers started sniffing around and took notice of the convenience to main highways. So they began ruining the view with Levittsville-style houses and big entertainment complexes sprouting up all around. But that's not what caused the disaster that I have to fix.

No, I'm afraid the source of all my recent agony is in the form of one man,  a man who somehow managed to possess most of the personality traits that I find so loathsome in human beings. He was a liar, a thief, a sloth, a know-it-all without actually knowing it all, a schemer, and a con artist. Unfortunately, he was also married to my mother for many years before he did us all the favor and dropped dead.

So I stayed away from the family house for the better part of a decade, although I have a pretty good idea of what happened to it during that time. I, along with my companions and some hired help, have been working to repair all the damage that came from a man with big dreams and very little ambition.

For the purpose of this documentary, I will be calling him "Mr. Bullfeathers"... a name my aunt came up for him many years ago. My father's nickname for him, "Chief Talkanawfullotta" was also considered. These nicknames came from the man's claims of being of Native American heritage, which we've also come to discover was complete buffalo dung.

* recently updated

More coming soon as the renovations continue!