Remember the first home you built? Kathy Trimble, a custom home builder in the Twin Cities area, is not likely to forget hers.
The mechanical rough-ins were done and Trimble’s spec house was ready for siding when a horrendous storm blew through the area, headed straight for Trimble’s house. All the doors and windows were blown out or damaged, she lost the third stall of the garage, and the home, although still attached to the foundation, was knocked off square.
Trimble’s insurance company and a structural engineer told her the home was salvageable, but it took her two months to find a subcontractor willing to take on the job. "The original framer said, ‘I know how to build it straight, I don’t know how to get it back,’" Trimble says.
In the end, the house was far stronger than it would have been - and six years later, her buyer still has no regrets about his purchase.
"I learned that if you can’t handle pressure, you don’t belong in construction," Trimble says.
