The Great Road Trip

Let me introduce you to David. David is the oldest of Bonus Dad's two sons. The younger one, Icky, is a bonus brother. David is not. I dated David for about 20 minutes when I was 17 and I just simply can't refer to him as a brother. He laughs when I tell him that. David is a Bonus Good Friend. I am very grateful to him and his wife who opened up their home to me last week when it looked like I was going to be stranded in Chicago overnight because of airline travel hell. Oh, I should probably add, David, his lovely wife and two daughters live in Chicago.

Right now though David is up at the charming 1936 cottage in mid-state Michigan with Bonus Dad and me. He has inherited the cottage from Bonus Mom when she passed and he wants to rebuild. I can't say I blame him. The basement is caving in and--it was nice of them not to tell me this until last night at midnight--there has been a bat spotted hanging around the basement, with a few random theories thrown out about how it got down there to begin with.

The home was hodge-podge built since 1936, with the fireplace and basement added in the 1940s. The downstairs bath was added in the 1950s. The dining room and 55 degree staircase was added in the early 1960s. The upstairs was expanded in the 1990s. At that time, the roof was raised so that even us short people could stand up straight on the second floor. The upstairs half bathroom added in 2002. I don't know when the screened in porch became a room.

This is rural America. I would like to think there were permits pulled and licensed contractors involved. Most likely. Probably. Maybe. But dang! This place is charming.

Anyway, David is rebuilding this sweet cottage. He has decided he wants to explore having a modular home put on the property. The closest modular home manufacturer is in Iron Mountain Michigan, which is only a 6-ish hour drive away. Mind you, there are dealers who sell this particular home much, much closer, but the actual buildings are built in Iron Mountain. Bonus Dad is a retired engineer and who doesn't love a good road trip? So, we went to investigate.

Iron Mountain is in Michigan but on the Wisconsin border.

We arrived for our factory tour at 4 p.m. Thursday, only because Iron Mountain is in a different time zone. Otherwise, we arrived at 5 p.m., Eastern Time. We left that morning around 9:30, which would have been grand, except the bridge traffic was down to one lane. There was a boat-load of construction on Highway 2 and the Bob's Bigboy in St. Ignace had more than 10 employees working for less than 10 patrons, but nobody, nobody I tell you!, could figure out how to get a burger cooked.

I wish I had taken pictures of the building process. It was truly fascinating! It is an assembly line, with each 50X20 module built on a separate stage. Each module is sent through the assembly line, where different aspects such as electricity and plumbing or cabinets are added. A house can have as many modules as the plans call for. So a 2 story four bedroom home could be 4 to 6 blocks, linked together. All of the homes are built, inside out, so the exterior walls are the last to go on. This way they can adjust whatever they need to adjust (outlets, insulation, etc.) as the process goes through. Is it cost-effective way to build a home? I don't know.

For those of you architect types or just have a curiosity, here is the web site: https://dickinsonhomes.com/

We stayed the night in a hotel that this company had built in this fashion. We were told it was 30 separate modules, had we not been told this, I wouldn't have known. It looked like a normal building with a brick facade.

In Michigan, homes are built on basements or crawlspaces, so that the foundation doesn't crack when the ground freezes and thaws. This company doesn't build basements, but they do subcontract out the work so they have the right specifications. Also, as one could imagine, building out here is not a year-round type of occupation. If one is building a modular home, it can't be placed on the site until the weather is good.

The next day we toured the models and David got a better sense of what he wanted. They gave him tons of plans to review. I guarantee Mrs. David is going to have a lot of opinions that she doesn't know she is going to have once they get this party started. I foresee a road trip for the David family to Iron Mountain in the future.

David wanted me to go with them on the trip because I know something about houses. I don't know how helpful I was. I asked a few questions that seemed reasonable. But let's face it, I know about Arizona houses. Anyway, I need to find an accountant, because I am now wondering if I can write off part of this trip. Even if I can't, it was a lot of fun to talk shop and see how these homes were made.