Years ago, back in 2005, Mike and I were newlyweds. Pistol and I had just moved up to Santa Fe from Albuquerque and I had closed my design business. I was looking for a way to make a living in a new town. The housing market was hot – flipping houses seemed like a good fit. Mike had years of construction under his belt and I was a scrappy DIYer with a background in building theater sets and welding. Mike was going to school at the time so I took the helm relying on him to help me on the weekends.
After shopping the Santa Fe fixer-uppers it was clear that this market was out of my budget. I drove down to Albuquerque which hadn’t quite caught on to the housing bubble yet. We found a great fixer-upper on Saint street. It had everything you could want in a house to flip; good bones, only cosmetic damage and the eye watering stench of years of cat pee. The best part was that it had a bomb shelter-who doesn’t want their own bomb shelter?? It had potential. It was in a good neighborhood on a street where people kept their lawns mowed and trash in the containers. The layout of the house was decent, it just needed was a make-over. We spent the next few months ripping out the old cat pee carpets, re-tiling everywhere, painting, landscaping and generally fixing the place up.