About the fella doing the work
I grew up in a drafty house north of Ukiah with a dad who'd rather replace a water pump than buy a new car. Figure that explains most of this.
I started pulling old trailers home in my twenties, mostly because I wanted one I could afford and couldn't stomach what the lots were asking for rigs that weren't half as pretty. The first one I did — a '64 sixteen-footer the neighbors called an eyesore — took me two and a half years of weekends. Sold it to a schoolteacher who cried when I handed her the keys. That about did it. Quit the mill in '08, built the shop in '09, been at it ever since.
They were built by people, and people can fix 'em. You don't throw away a thing just because the skin's dented and the icebox quit in 1982. Wood can be replaced. Aluminum straightens. Wiring is wiring. The hard part — the hand-built bones, the shape of the thing, the way it catches evening light in a campground — you can't buy that new at any price.
One trailer at a time. I start in the morning with coffee and I quit when the light goes. I don't subcontract. I don't have employees. My dog Merle keeps time. If a rig needs six months, it gets six months. If a part has to come from a fella in Michigan who only answers his phone on Tuesdays, we wait for Tuesday.
I don't do fifth-wheels. I don't do anything newer than about 1985 — not because the newer ones are bad, just because they aren't my language. I don't do insurance claims. I don't do quick cosmetic flips for folks looking to resell. And I don't sell what I haven't finished. If it's on the yard page, it went home with somebody.
A gravel road off a two-lane highway in eastern Oregon, between the sagebrush and the wheat. The shop's a pole barn with good light. That's about all you need to know, and if you need to know more, somebody who already knows me will tell you.