Friday, September 9, 2011

New Habitat for Humanity ReStore has opened in Muskegon MI: Mile 13087.

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It's ironic the Habitat for Humanity has a location across street from Norton Shores old motel strip where surely people are living on a transient basis much of the year. Now the fishing is keeping them at no vacancy I guess, and fishing boats appear in the lots. One can live there, tax, maintenance and utility free for between eight hundred to a grand a month. Have you ever stayed in an unrenovated hotel for any extended stay. Bedsits are to be preferred to these human closets. Ever met that sort of person who tries to get a handle on your real estate situation before learning most any fact about one? Well, it's certain residence in one of these units is a definite screener. Jesus living in the Airline Hotel long term would have a hard time making friends too. Still, it is a step up from skid row or the tenderloin or Division Street in Grand Rapids MI. Dixon's on Grand Haven on the way down go Ferrysburg attracts itinerant bikers and workers down on their luck. This motel complex has a pleasant country feel, with old sugar maples, set in a meadow, close to factories with OK jobs, pay and hours and tasks. While in Dallas Texas, I stayed in the McKinney Motel, a bit of a drive from midtown but not far from McKinney's charming downtown with winery wine bars, like Lone Star Cellars and bookstores with perfect condition old novels. I have written in this blog about getting the skinny on McKinney. Tell everyone you live out by the WalMart, a sustainable design with solar panels and even a windmill.

This is a friendly store with great merchandise. A new hire gave me a grand tour, showing me a wall painted with Everybody's Paint. It's a pretty wall painted a not unpleasing shade of green, and real estate flippers and investors buy it quickly, ten dollars the can. It's a favorite with landlords too. I saw an antique piano for seventy five dollars and a church pew, longer than most, for fifty dollars. The wood is old oak or better. If you want to buy birdhouses, there's an ample supply of bluebird and purple martin houses, built by volunteers to raise money for White Lake house builds. I am sure they stock hundreds of used toliets. A mother and her two children walked the door and moulding racks, and she found a few lengths to take home. The five year old boy said a charming hello to my tour guide. The girl, about the same age, walked and played Nintendo as she followed her mother. Plenty of windows await the builder of second houses and granny shacks. I rather wish I had bought the old steeltackle box with older lures.ReStore is so much more fun than a Salvation Army or a Goodwill.

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