I Married My Contractor!

The house in Savannah had atrocious windows covered with plywood and metal bars, a nonworking bathroom, and knob and tube wiring that was decades out of date. "It was in scary condition," says artist and gallery owner Susan Laney. But she bought the house because its style reminded her of her childhood home in Jacksonville, FL. "I remember seeing it for the first time and feeling like I was back where I grew up," says Susan. Her artist's vision didn't exactly dissuade her either. "I was 26 and so naive. I thought I could renovate on nights and weekends, and have the whole thing wrapped up in about six months," she says.

Despite its many (many) faults-she later found out that the roof leaked and the timbers had been chomped by termites-the 1918 house ended up being the ultimate husband finder: Without the holes in the kitchen floor, Susan might never have met carpenter and contractor Frank Ellsworth. "I started out doing a lot of the work myself," Susan, now 38, recalls. "I did some demo, scraped paint, and even attempted to sand floors." But within a year, she began hiring various workers, including Frank and his then business partner, whose first task was redoing the kitchen floor. Ironically, she chose the pair because she thought Frank's partner was cute. "But he ended up annoying me so much that I fired him and kept Frank around," Susan says. Then, when Frank made a big mistake with the subfloor, he took just a day to fix it and paid for new wood out of his own pocket. "He was such a breath of fresh air," Susan says. "So honest and respectful."

Frank's first impression of Susan, meanwhile, was "my God, what a hardnosed
woman," he says, recalling one time she refused to pay an invoice because he didn't use a nail set tool. (It's complicated. Just google it.) "But she's also beautiful and intelligent." Soon after she hired him, Frank accompanied Susan to an architectural salvage store. "We got lunch, and I was struck by how
easy it was to be with him," Susan says. A few weeks later he asked her out on an official date-as opposed to a work errand.