If you want a Big Bang for your remodeling project, think about a handyman special to gain a financial foothold with your first home.
When it comes to a handyman special, you don't necessarily want the biggest, most elaborate home in the neighborhood.
It went from an ill-fitting, mismatched
handyman special to a pistol any 1911 fan would be proud to own.
"Bill is a carpenter, so the last thing we wanted was a
handyman special," said Baley about the work that eventually went into the home.
They filed for a home refinance loan with the Long Island Savings Bank (LISB), which had sold the Bermudezes their foreclosed "
handyman special" and provided them the original $46,000 mortgage just two years earlier.
The
handyman special was purchased for $4.1 million and is the first time since the 1980's that such money was paid for a 20-footer.
As with his "found," tattered, crocheted dolls and drool-stained blankies, the underlying ethos of his current
handyman specials gives the impression of an unschooled maker of only average intelligence with a sincere and naive creative impulse, whose folkloric esthetic echoes the heartland America where cuteness and make-do ingenuity and the libertarian ethic of "a man's home is his castle" are cardinal virtues.