Paula Pacholke-Dumont Senior Real Estate Specialist

So, how does a research chemist/lab director end up in Real Estate? After a long career in R&D, I decided it was time to do something that I’ve always loved: houses and helping people!

My grandpa was a carpenter and he taught me how to use a hammer and other woodworking tools when I was about 5 years old.  It was great fun to hang out in grandpa’s garage workshop and build things.  I watched my mom design the house that my uncle would build for us and keenly watched the construction process. I was so excited to find mom put a bar sink in the kitchen so I had a place to do my chemistry set experiments. (I’m pretty sure mom wasn’t so excited when I lit the sink on fire with my alcohol burner, though!)

After getting my BS in chemistry, I settled into my grandparents’ house and grandpa’s workshop and started my first renovation projects on the 1950’s bungalow. I sandwiched reno projects like new kitchen counters and sink and bathroom flooring and painting in between my grad school classes and working in sales at Jacobson’s.

I took on a bigger renovation project when I had permission from my landlord to renovate the late 1890’s duplex I lived in up in Lexington, MI and commuted to my day job as the laboratory leader at a company in Port Huron. The house was pretty rough, but I figured I could make it better. After I gutted the plaster from that bathroom and found I could hang, tape and mud drywall and looked amazing after painting and redoing the floors, I was hooked and started to look for a house I could really call my own.

I bought my first house in 1988 – a charming old four square (c. 1884) with gas light fittings still in the walls, ancient wallpaper and tons of paint on gorgeous wood work and staircase- and went to work. I met my husband while working on that house and he was not quite as enthusiastic about renovations as I am, so the next three houses we lived in were considerably more modern construction!

When the Great Recession hit in 2008, my husband and I decided to invest in rental houses up in Howell. The first one we bought was built in 1887, followed by one in the late 1890s and the newest of the lot was built in 1910. It’s been a fun adventure restoring and updating (no, I don’t do gray wood flooring or walls!) these old beauties for another family to enjoy and experience.

In my spare time, I love to sing, knit and spend time with my family.

I look forward to helping you find your new home!

“If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!”
St. Catherine of Siena