The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber [Hardcover]

Ed Zotti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2008

A harrowing, hilarious memoir about fixing up an old house in the city and pursuing the urban version of the American Dream. From the longtime editor of the “Straight Dope.”

In 1993, after more people had fled Chicago for the suburbs than in any other city in America, Ed Zotti and his wife, Mary, chose not only to stay but to gamble their future fixing up a dilapidated Victorian home in a dicey neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side.

Two doors up from a murder/arson scene and across the alley from a former drive- up drug mart, the Barn House (as the Zottis’ unimpressed daughter dubbed it) was a rehabber’s nightmare. Ed and his family had to contend not just with collapsed ceilings and shorted-out wiring but burglars, gunshots, and the trumpet-playing homeless guy in the basement.

But THE BARN HOUSE is more than just the story of a home-renovation project from hell. Ultimately it's a celebration of cities, chronicling not just a house but a decaying town come back to life. Along the way Ed offers some shrewd observations about gentrification, urban decline and revival, and what it means to be a city guy. His book is timely and a great read and will appeal to anyone with a soft spot for old houses or old towns.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In 1993 Chicagoan Zotti and his wife, in contrast to most city dwellers (who were jumping ship for the suburbs), bought themselves a dilapidated Victorian home, conveniently located just a few doors from a murder-arson crime scene, and threw themselves enthusiastically into the job of restoring it to its former glory. This entailed, as the author quickly discovered, tearing parts of the house apart and rebuilding them, a process that involved not just carpentry but plumbing, wiring, and all sorts of highly exacting tasks. It was a long and exhausting renovation (comparisons to The Money Pit are obvious and appropriate), but Zotti and his family persevered, and the book is a lively, often funny, sometimes startling, occasionally surreal account of the rehabbing process, from getting the mortgage to choosing the architect to balancing dreams with reality. It’s the perfect book for armchair or would-be renovators. --David Pitt

Review

"A lively, often funny, sometimes startling, occasionally surreal account of the rehabbing process, from getting the mortgage to choosing the architect to balancing dreams with reality. It’s the perfect book for armchair or would-be renovators."
—Booklist

  "If you are a do-it-yourselfer with a compulsion to fix up a house, this will be a fun read, and you can laugh along as Ed hires a homeless trumpeter to guard the open house, forgets to wish his wife a happy Mother's Day and single-handedly tames ancient radiators, forcing their rusted bushing to yield to his will.... I have no idea what a bushing is, either, but I read all 40 pages about that incident, a classic tale of Man vs. Rusty Widget. It was just that amusing."
—Kay Severinsen, Chicago Sun-Times

  "Ed Zotti has so much faith in Chicago that he spent years, untold thousands of dollars, and countless buckets of sweat to rehab a shabby old Victorian there – in a perverse mirror image of the folks who flee the city to fix up houses in the suburbs and the country. The man is nuts.... Zotti is, however, oh so very readably nuts. His new book, The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber, will warm the cockles of any ham-fisted homeowner who hands half his paycheck to Home Depot every Saturday morning or fills his contractor's bottomless pockets – or both....

  "As a writer [Zotti] is both a superb stylist and a superb explainer, a rare combination whose reigning demigods are Tracy Kidder and John McPhee. He begins in his childhood, when his irascible perfectionist handyman father (I had one of those, too) introduced him to the principles of the Brotherhood of the Right Way. Its members believe not in "okay" or "good enough for government work," but using proper techniques to build something both beautiful and lasting....

  "This book is about a lot more than sawing and nailing, plumbing and wiring; it is about understanding one's community, its past and its future. And about understanding one's own place in that community. In one of many richly rendered passages, Zotti tells how an old electrician watched him 'crank down a fitting with what he considered excessive force' and said, 'I'd hate to be the guy that comes after you.'

  "That gave Zotti pause. He wasn't, he realized, the first to work on that old house and he wouldn't be the last. He appreciated those before him who had done things properly, and he hoped those who followed would appreciate his work. Rehabbing the Right Way is a long continuum of skill and caring.

  "The tradesmen who belong to the brotherhood often are unappreciated by the bottom-line guys, Zotti writes. 'You were an artist in a world that didn't reward artistry -- I knew that from my own experience. As a writer I occasionally got compliments for a well-turned paragraph -- people expected such things of writers. But rare was the electrical job at the end of which people came up to me and said, Hey, nice pipes' ...

  Nice pipes, Ed. Nice book, too.”
—Henry Kisor, "The Reluctant Blogger"; retired book editor, Chicago Sun-Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: NAL Hardcover; First Edition edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451225570
• ISBN-13: 978-0451225573
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,638,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Brotherhood of the Right Way, September 3, 2008

By 

M. Kaplan (Monrovia, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber (Hardcover)

I gotta say I got a lot more out of this book than I was expecting to. (To be fair, I must state at the outset that as a college student 30 years ago, I worked for the author and his wife at the job where they met.) I knew from reading The Straight Dope columns (which Ed edits) that the book would be funny, but I haven't laughed at a book this hard, out loud, since Bill Bryson "A Walk in the Woods." But "The Barn House" also has a serious side, looking at the gains (and losses) of urban neighborhoods going upscale, and what separates "house" from "home," and needed repairs from obsession.

But the reason I give the book five stars is Ed's underlying concept in the book, and of life itself, which he's dubbed "The Brotherhood of the Right Way." You have to read the book to fully understand it, but he manages to explain a truth about people and their work habits that you'll instantly recognize. This is way more than a book about home repair and remodeling, and I can't recommend it enough.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A story about a house, a city, a family and how we live, October 13, 2008

By 

JillGat (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber (Hardcover)

Like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," the title is just an introduction or backdrop to the bigger story. The "Barn House" is about rehabbing a house, but it's also about history (which I loved), architecture, a city, a neighborhood, a family, and the many characters - the cultures, personalities and perspectives - one gets to know and mix it up with(and sometimes to trust with everything dear in life) while delving into this kind of monstrously risky affair.

And, most articulately, it's about process, which really is all everything is about. Even if you've never rehabbed a house, you've been there, which is what makes this a truly enjoyable read for people like me who will never do it.

I don't have the patience to rehab anything. As soon as I start a project, my earlier goals and standards for the finished project shrink with my frustration and desire only to have it done. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate artistry and perfection; it just means that either my husband does it or I hire someone else who will do it Right. And I notice this and I admire the hell out of them for it.

I don't know nuthin 'bout wiring and I prefer to leave the fireworks to others; in fact I'll pay them more if they just tell me it's magic when it works. But this book drew me in, which is a real testament, because Ed Zotti does love and admire the details involved in wiring. I found myself wanting to know more about stuff that has never - and I daresay I hope never will - be useful to me. A good book is a pleasant escape from your reality, and it takes a good writer to make it so.

I could have done without the occasional corny gender stereotypes, but it's a personal account by an author who is candid about how he sees the world and we all have our limitations.

Two things I would like to see in the next edition:

1. Pictures. Artists' drawing and before and after photos. I often had to read a paragraph over again to try to picture what was being described. I wanted to refer to illustrations.

2. A glossary of terms. Many details were well explained for the layman and analogies were useful. But certain building/construction/architectural terms were thrown about that were useless to me. (Though I should admit that so were a lot of the adjectives and verbs, since my vocabulary just isn't that great.)

This would be a great housewarming gift, but read it before you decide who to give it to. Some people might not think some of this stuff is funny!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a Home Renovation Story, September 2, 2008

By 

K. Fauth - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber (Hardcover)

I just finished The Barn House by Ed Zotti, and I truly enjoyed reading it. It's a whole lot more than what it appears on the surface. Yes, Zotti covers the details of his extensive home renovation. But he also includes historical information about Chicago - and large cities in general, intersperses vignettes about the lives of the people he meets during the project, and applies liberal humor throughout. His writing style is conversational and easy to follow, and he tackles his work with an energy level that makes you want to know if it all works out in the end. Great book - especially for those do-it-yourselfers who find themselves in over their heads or who can't stop watching HGTV and Ty Pennington!