When novelist Erica Bauermeister and her family agreed to search for a new house, one that would bring them closer, they didn't picture the dilapidated Victorian on the Olympic Peninsula, northwest of their Seattle home. But Bauermeister, an acknowledged "champion of underdogs," and her husband were smitten. "It's not your fault," she whispered to the trash-filled house after their first visit revealed its myriad flaws. "We'll take care of you."
House Lessons: Renovating a Life is a family memoir, a primer of architectural theories and a study of how people relate to their spaces. Fans of her four novels know Bauermeister has a keen appreciation of the senses--savoring food in The School of Essential Ingredients, the art of fragrance in The Scent Keeper. She demonstrates that same respect for the renovation. "I wanted to understand our house and what it had to teach me." She chronicles the monumental tasks with humor: her young son's glee at handling a power tool, her teenage daughter's sledgehammer skills, and battling mold, various creatures and tenacious Pacific Northwest ivy.
"The big asbestos-covered marriage counselor" could satisfy Bauermeister's need to solidify her marriage, she thinks, and the renovation does confirm their complementary strengths and support, as she balances family life in Seattle with her role as "project manager" a drive and a ferry ride away.
As adeptly as she describes in layperson's language the physics of building a new foundation under a house suspended in air, Bauermeister condenses her family's two-decade journey from their discovery of the neglected, mossy house to the last sentence of this ultimately joyous memoir. --Cheryl McKeon, bookseller, Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y.