我几年内不与我交谈过的一个朋友打电话，问新的房子建造是如何出现的。我看着厨房的窗户。在所有东西棚时都重新塑造了一个古老的花园棚。我深吸了一口气。“你还在吗？”他问。“是的，”我说。“只是。”

回到城市，在我们的半独立式房屋中，故事开始的地方是由煤渣块双车库赎回的邮票码。在房屋所有权的早期，我很惊讶自己的好运，在一个有300万城市的市中心拥有一个大号的车库。

车库坐着四辆自行车，四辆摩托车，一辆旧大众GTI，甚至较老的大众巴士和一辆折叠式摩托车拖车。加上工具，台式研磨机，桌子锯，一个压缩机，三个梯子，园艺工具和一两个袋子的盆栽土壤，它们总是将其内容物洒到骑行靴，微米或摩托车链中。

If one thing in the garage was out of place, nothing could be put in its place. As the years passed, I longed for a workshop that wasn’t required to house the detritus of everyday life. Into Google I’d type the words “motorcycle garage with space to turn around,” or “workshop where a man could leave a half-finished project on a stand and go to bed without worrying that his illegally parked car in the laneway will be susceptible to an $8o ticket.”

Google, only too happy to confirm my garage didn’t measure up, furnished me with photographs of mezzanine-topped garages with Zagato-bodied 1950s Maseratis next to four-piped 1970s MV Agustas and bevel-drive Ducatis. And oil changes on the bus would be so much easier with that car lift. And here was a workspace with a La Marzocco espresso machine. To think I’d once been satisfied carrying coffee out to the garage from the house. That settled it. We were moving to the country and building a house near twisty roads, and ski hills, and mountain biking, and lakes so clear you could see fish swimming 20 feet down. And, above all, I’d finally have my workshop.

Out came the graph paper, pencils, and rulers. Over red wine and late nights, a 1,400 square-foot mid-century modern inspired house was designed with a modest two-bay garage tucked neatly under the eaves. And around the other side of the house would be a black anodized garage door with frosted glass that led to a workshop with a motorcycle lift, a metal lathe, and a pair of eight-foot-long workbenches. We sold our house in the city, bought a piece of land at the base of a hill, and set about the building of our own little Shangri-La.

采购了许可证，委托图纸，咨询专家，并将调查粘贴在泥泞中。我们的房子要处于一个层面，要保持预算适中住magazine was assiduously avoided. There would be no floating live-edge metal walls lightly stained with a dusting of rusting patina or 12-foot windows that cantilevered into the forest. Drywall and standard-sized windows it would be. And I’d do much of the finishing work myself, saving further money.

然后我们得到了成本估算的建设者. After the meeting I went back to our rented condo and spent the rest of the day in bed. Our modest house in the country, that was supposed to deliver us from the financial stresses of urban life, was, instead, going to saddle us with a massive mortgage for life. And for a good chunk of the afterlife, too. The per-square-foot building cost we’d often been quoted was not a number tethered to reality. It was as if we’d tried to build a house on Mars. Gutted, we pulled the plug on the build.

We sold the land, rolled the blueprints for the house back up and slid them into the cardboard tube, extended the rental on the storage facility, and began looking for a house to buy. Within a month or so we found a 1950s bungalow with good bones and a history of slapdash renovations. It required a gutting and total rebuild—which I would do myself. It had an attached single garage, but alas, we had to annex it for more living space as the house was just too small otherwise.

我手里拿着撬棍，我的眼镜被我的防尘口罩雾化，我偶然发现了夏天的炎热。我花了一周的时间去除两层和三层的剃须刀金属增强的石膏板，然后将其扔进垃圾箱。我的手臂是尸体的颜色，除了在灰尘中浸透的血液铆钉。我看了看悲伤的花园棚，里面有不匹配的门和漏水的屋顶，回想起我曾经拥有的双车库，并放弃了搬到这里。事情没有解决。

看法。很难找到，尤其是在最黑暗的时刻。但是，随着翻新工程的发展，尽管发现了房屋的进一步问题，但我感到遗憾的是，我越来越依附于小平房。我们在大流行前夕购买了它，在价格飙升之前 - 购买后的六个月，我们将无法负担得起。我们的房子位于该地区最受欢迎的街道之一。从长远来看，一旦翻新完成，它的价值将比我们没有建造的房屋还要多。迟早，房子的价值将使我离开街头。那不是嘲弄。那是事实。

My wife claims someday we’ll build a garage and that I’ll have a workshop. Not like the one we were going to build, but a scaled-down version. I’m not so sure. For the cost of the new septic system, I could have bought an R1250 GS Adventure, disassembled it, and had every single component gold plated. (Including the seat, windshield, and wiring.) And every time we’re poised to get a leg up financially, a tree needs to be removed or an appliance fails. If you have a house, my father used to say, you always have something to do.

我在春天的第一天写这篇文章。太阳熄灭了，雪几乎消失了，鸟儿造成了骚动。去年秋天，我在棚子上放了一个新的屋顶，修理了门，更换了窗户，将其连接到电源，并给了一层油漆。必须做。我很感激，我很幸运能够拥有一辆摩托车。

For me, images from war-torn Ukraine have been a head-shaking wake-up call for my own self-entitlement. I have food. I have shelter. I have a wife who loves me. (Who will love me even more once I’ve completed tiling the kitchen.) We ask for so much, for too much. I’ve moved on from wanting a workshop—I’m not the first person to do brake jobs in the driveway. But should I ever get a workshop, or a garage, one thing will be certain. I’ll appreciate it as if it was sent to me from beyond the stars. And that’s more than I could ever—should ever—ask for.