Those videos on social media and YouTube of people redoing vans and buses into shiny dwellings on wheels, or the ones of folks building tiny homes full of air and light from scratch, fill me with horror and fascination.
Horror because I find home improvement utterly unrelatable and somewhat terrifying. I live in a 1975 Airstream trailer, and I have for almost 15 years. The closest thing I have ever done to a “renovation” was the time my best friend showed up to help me clean, and — while I was out buying the cleaning supplies I didn’t actually own — she threw everything I did own out on the lawn, and cheerfully said, “It gets easier after this.”
Marie Kondo isn’t really a thing when you live in a small space that dictates just how much you can own. Organizing is a thing — my one concession to home improvement that day was agreeing to buy a shoe rack.
The biggest improvement I have made to my living situation was having my handyman friend John (see the tool story in this issue) build me a redneck catio for Walter Cronkat and his auxiliary cat, Stringer.
But I am also fascinated because there are people out there who make living in a tiny home look tempting rather than like the endless mess that living in a small space really is. People ask me for tips on small space living, and I’m like, “Shop at Ikea and rent a storage unit.”
So for those of you who excel at home improvement and for those of you, like me, who prefer to keep things aspirational, this Fixer-Upper issue — from catios, to tools, to painting — is for you.