THE WHY / A PUBLIC EXPERIMENT

I’M COLIN
KLINE.

Colin Kline, creator of Principal Damage — COLIN KLINE / HOMEOWNER & PROJECT CREATOR

I’m a husband, a dad of two daughters, and, since 2021, the proud owner of a house that came with a very long payment schedule.

I plan to live here for the rest of my life. Apparently, my mortgage has similar ambitions. I’d like to be the one who stays longer.

There is nothing dramatic happening here. I’m not in financial distress. I’m not behind on payments. Nobody is coming to take the house. I simply looked at the balance one day and thought, “There has to be a more interesting way to deal with this.”

So I built Principal Damage.

The idea is simple: take one completely ordinary mortgage, make the principal visible, break it into pieces, and let people voluntarily chip away at it.

I’ll keep making my regular payments. Those stay separate. Anything contributed through Principal Damage gets tracked separately and, once it actually hits the mortgage principal, becomes part of the project.

No tragic backstory.
No rescue mission.
No inspirational journey.

Just one house I really like, one mortgage I really don’t, and a very specific desire to make that number disappear.

Same house. Less mortgage.

Participation

A contribution gives no ownership of the house, repayment claim, goods, or financial return. It is not presented as a tax-deductible charitable donation.

Two kinds of principal. One honest record.

Non-public principal includes the $24,372.85 paid before launch and the principal portion of future owner payments. It stays neutral gray. Public Damage includes only contributions applied to mortgage principal and administratively verified. It turns cobalt blue. Escrow and interest never enter the artwork.

Where the money goes

Contributor
Stripe
Principal Damage account
Mortgage principal payment
Verified against lender records
Artwork updates

Receipt is not principal verification. Processing fees are accounted for separately; only the amount actually applied to principal enters the grid.

The starting record

Original principal: $200,000.00
Launch principal: $175,627.15
Paid before experiment: $24,372.85
Public damage: $0.00
Interest rate: 3.125%
Maturity: June 1, 2051

Transparency, without an address.

Only verified principal reductions belong in the public record. Payment receipt and lender application are separate events. The artwork omits address details, and original house photographs are not published.