Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved: A Woman Moves a House to Make a Home [Unknown Binding]

Kate Whouley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2004

Cottage for Sale boasts a compelling plot and memorable characters, but it is more than that. Like the cottage on wheels, Kate Whouley takes the back roads, with a keen eye for the inner scenery. Cottage For Sale Must Be Moved is a quirky, captivating memoir filled with warmth, wisdom, and laughter. For everyone who has ever dreamed of creating a space of their own, there is a Cottage for Sale. You only have to move it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Whouley, a single, 40-something business planning consultant to booksellers and a self-described frugal New Englander, takes on the challenge of moving a vacation cottage a distance of 20 miles so she can attach it to her tiny three-room house at the edge of a bog on Cape Cod to create more personal and professional space. But given the amount of detail she presents on everything from obtaining a permit to selecting decking materials to waiting for the plumber to arrive, it appears she may have been thinking of getting a book out of the experience, too. Her meticulous account chronicles the joys and frustrations of the yearlong project that began in December 1999, when Whouley saw a classified ad in the local paper announcing, "Cottages for Sale. $3,000 each. Must be moved." By book's end, a year later, she hosts a Christmas dinner "in the newly arranged living-dining room, at the big round table that is now by the windows... with the view of the birds at the feeder"-a huge improvement over having to consume meals "hunched over the kitchen counter" in her old digs. Do-it-yourselfers will enjoy the exhaustive information regarding budget home construction, including how the lumber at the independent Mid-Cape Home Center stacks up against Home Depot's (Whouley likes "old friend" Mid-Cape better, but grudgingly admires Home Depot's service). Other readers might skim the construction details and focus on Whouley's descriptions of the workers, friends and neighbors who help create her new home. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A few years ago, the author, a habitual reader of classified ads, saw something that caught her eye. Completely assembled cottages were for sale for $3,000, but, if you wanted one, you had to be prepared to move it yourself. What would the author do with her very own cottage? Well, she ran her business out of her home, and she was desperately in need of more office space. Why not attach the cottage to her house? Cheaper than constructing an addition, right? So began an odyssey of confusion, consternation, and light comedy. On one hand, there is not much to this book--she buys the cottage, arranges to have it moved, and it gets moved--but, on the other hand, there is so much here you will want to read it twice. The book has a cast of characters that range from interesting to eccentric, a series of misadventures that might have come from a comic novel, and a narrative style that makes you keep turning the pages. It's one of those books in which the author has taken something personal and made it universal. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 301 pages
• Publisher: Commonwealth Editions (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889833746
• ISBN-13: 978-1889833743
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,463,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kate Whouley lives and writes on Cape Cod, where she also works as an independent consultant in the book industry. Her first book, Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved, was a Book Sense Book-of-the-Year nominee in the nonfiction category, has received kudos from booksellers and reviewers, and is a popular selection for reading groups. Kate's personal essays have appeared in the Cape Cod Times, Boston Globe, and the book-industry online journal, Shelf Awareness. An avocational flutist, Kate volunteers as a facilitator for the Cape and Islands Arts & Alzheimer's initiative.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful Cape Cod tale of home improvement, May 8, 2004

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved: A Woman Moves a House to Make a Home

If you think the only thing more tedious than initiating a building project is to read about someone else undertaking one, then you need to pick up this book to change your mind. Kate Whouley shares with us an experience full of excitement, possibility, drama, finance, frustration, spirituality, and above all, friendship and humor.

The first task is to figure out how to move a cottage from one town to another. The second is to take care of the extensive interior work that will unite an existing house to its cottage addition. Woven in and around it all are the plans and official paperwork that must be filed with the proper authorities. Though the originally simple thought of attaching the two structures becomes more complicated as the weeks go by, the author has a support staff of friends and local artisans who keep her spirits high and keep making construction progress. And of course the whole operation is supervised by Egypt, the resident cat-in-charge. The eight pages of b&w photos barely cover all the stages of the project, but Whouley's descriptive prose more than makes up for the lack of additional visuals. By the last page, you know her home almost as well as she does.

A fun and fast book to read, even if you don't know your flathead from a Phillips, and especially if you're thinking of enlarging your own home. An "Under the Tuscan Sun" (the book, not the movie) set on an American shore.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kate, can I come for dinner?!, October 3, 2004

By 

Swissmiss "Swissmiss" (Lausanne, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved: A Woman Moves a House to Make a Home

When I was a single woman, I got it in my head to move from Boston to Nantucket, not knowing a soul or really knowing much more than how the island was during the 2 weeks in July I would go there every year. Like the author, I found a little cottage that had been loved long ago, built in the 50's and abandoned. I bought it on the spot when I saw it and proceeded to make Nantucket my home for many years until meeting my husband and being swept off to Europe and marriage at age 45. I felt like I was reading a ot of my own story as Kate swept me up in her adventures of builders and plumbers and the hazards of trying to do a project of this scope as a single woman. This would make a great movie I think! And the next time I come home for a visit I am going to try and find this wonderful little cottage with the cottage attached.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A memoir of discovery!, June 3, 2004

By 

er (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved: A Woman Moves a House to Make a Home

In two words, it is irresistibly readable. I was immediately hooked by the author's ease of recapturing the process of the journey, and the vivid dialogue of the story's principal character. Not many of us are so bold as to move a cottage or follow a dream. The author has given us a highly understandable and dramatic account of one woman's commitment, struggle and passion for a dream. I'm personally inspired. This is a woman worth knowing. I highly recommend.