Houseboat revamp fills retiree’s dream
Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/234728/
TEXARKANA — Refurbishing a run-down houseboat has been 66-year-old Vickie Lener’s mission in life for the past five years.
Lener sees it as giving her the freedom to enjoy her retirement in the way she’d planned.
“Well, you know, all my life I was a single mom and I worked every job I could to make a living for my kids. And you just think, ‘Someday, it’s going to be my turn.’ I love the water, and I love to swim.... I just thought I’d get to enjoy myself when I got my family raised,” Lener said.
What Lener discovered is that boat restoration is a journey in itself.
She’s dealt with seedy contractors who took her money but didn’t complete projects and other obstacles that made her question whether her dream of spending nights on the water was an impossible one.
“Everybody I tried to get to work on it told me what a piece of junk it was. I had people work on it that ripped me off really bad. I paid $ 2, 024 to fix the roof and the guy put a piece of rubber up there,” Lener said.
Lener got the houseboat with the highest bid at a church auction, but it needed work.
Leaks caused structural damage, and the interior was in sad shape, as well.
Lener saved her money and bided her time before deciding to give the refurbishing efforts one last shot. She called around but the contractors she talked to weren’t interested in the job. Finally, she found someone up to the challenge of repairing the large houseboat.
Mike Sowers from Right Way Remodeling took a look at the damage and declared himself up to the task.
“Everybody told me it wasn’t worth it until these guys,” Lener said. “I was just amazed. He walked in and said, ‘No problem. ’”
Lener climbed a 6-foot ladder Thursday afternoon to see Sowers’ part of the restoration completed and almost immediately there were tears of joy in her eyes.
Sowers and his crew put a new roof on the boat, rewired it, checked gas lines, built cabinets, replaced the interior paneling and overall made the boat ready for the water.
Not only was the work more than what she expected, Sowers also bought Lener a flat-screen television that fit perfectly on the corner shelf in the boat.
Lener, who learned a week ago that she will need surgery for a curable form of skin cancer, was moved to tears by the gesture.
Sowers, for his part, was humble about the gift and the highquality work.
“She got took a couple of times by contractors. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I try to do my very best,” Sowers said. “Kim [Lener’s daughter ] told me the other day her mom has cancer. I just recently lost my dad to cancer, so... I took the money I was going to make and bought her a TV. I just liked them. We went a little above and beyond, but we wanted to.”
Lener plans to recover from surgery on her boat on DeGray Lake outside Arkadelphia.
Kim Hopper didn’t support her mother’s dream at first but has since gotten on board.
“I felt it was too much for her to take on at her age. I just felt like it was too big, too much of a project,... but she’s always had a dream of being on a lake and she wouldn’t give up the boat. Whenever I realized she was not going to give up,... she was determined to get it in the water, my brother and I talked and decided we would support her,” Hopper said.
Hopper said Dowd Marine also was instrumental in providing guidance to restore the boat.
Hopper and Lener say Sowers and his crew have restored their faith in humanity.
“They were hired to do a specific job, and they’ve gone above and beyond. I just know there’s no way they could make any money off her. They did this out of the kindness of their hearts. They didn’t do this for anything other than that’s what they wanted to do.... It’s my mom’s dream,” Hopper said.