Q&A: It's Hammer Time

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MANY PEOPLE cruise past dilapidated old Victorians or ramshackle Colonials and think, "Eeek — a haunted house!" To others, a pile of crumbling bricks and sagging porch columns sparks Bob Vila-esque dreams, notions like, "I could buy that cheaply and fix it up."

That's exactly what David Giffels and his wife, Gina, did 12 years ago, snagging a tumbling-down, about-to-be-condemned 1913 Tudor in Akron, Ohio, for just $65,000. There were mammoth holes in the roof, a raccoon in the rafters and no working plumbing. But Giffels persevered, trekking into the wreckage, and — and after much hammering, plastering, painting and sweat — revived a piece of Rust Belt history, in the process learning a lot about himself and his loved ones. He chronicles his quest in "All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House" ($26, William Morrow). We chatted with him about the experience.

» EXPRESS: How did buying a house change your life?
» GIFFELS: It changed the way that free time was spent. It meant what we did as a family [Giffels and his wife have two children], especially in the early years, were things like wallpapering or painting.

» EXPRESS: What was the most daunting thing at the beginning?
» GIFFELS: It's hard to say. I walked into the house, and it was so completely chaotic that it had no context. There were holes in the roof 3 feet across, there was a wisteria vine growing freely across the attic, and water literally ran through the house when it rained. The most daunting thing was to get one corner where you could be in and see your way forward.

» EXPRESS: And wasn't there still someone in the home before you bought it?
» GIFFELS: Yes, Mrs. Radner, who had lived there with her husband. He died in 1965, and it slowly decayed around her. She remained here in this kind of "Grey Gardens" setting, moving from one room to another as the rain started coming in. It struck me as really sad, like she was a Tennessee Williams character who saw the house as it once had been, not what it had become.

» EXPRESS: Do homeowners have a responsibility to make sure their houses don't become wrecks like that?
» GIFFELS: Yeah. I came to see myself as the next generation of caretaker. That's the worst thing about this country -- we tear things down when they seem to be obsolete.

» EXPRESS: How did you learn the kind of DIY skills you needed to do this?
» GIFFELS: I was the kind of kid who was always interested in woodworking, and my dad was always doing projects. But coming into it, I thought: "Whatever I don't know, I can learn.'" It's like that Mark Twain quote, "With ignorance and arrogance, success is assured." I had both of those in equal measure.

» EXPRESS: Early in the book, you lose your hammer, and you're really bereft. Why do people form such strong bonds with their tools?
» GIFFELS: There are people who collect old tools, because of the whole idea of the years of human erosion on the handle of a hammer — it's evocative. And when it's your own tool — it's like a cowboy and his horse. Anything that's directly connected to what you do has a value that's not just sentimental.

» EXPRESS: Which tool came in the handiest during the renovations?
» GIFFELS: A big, powerful shop vacuum. It could pick up the mess of a project, which you wouldn't think was that important. But when you are working in the chaos of the mess you've created, everything can fall apart. A shop vac can at least get things cleaned.

» EXPRESS: Which rehab tasks did you get the most pleasure from?
» GIFFELS: Certain things are kind of high-craft, like plasterwork. So, whenever I had to re-create some other craftsman's very fine work, I knew I didn't do it very well. But there's this idea that a set of artist's hands had been the last to do that work. It made me almost feel like an apprentice.

» EXPRESS: House renovations often break couples up, but this one seemed to strengthen your marriage. Why?
» GIFFELS: In a lot of ways, we didn't know what we were getting into. But we both knew we couldn't live in a house this grand unless we'd taken on one like this. We realized this was a highly idealized, romantic thing to do. It made our lives more adventurous.