When I first saw our current house, I knew I was home. (Even though it would take me months to admit that.) It was tiny but quaint in the middle of a gorgeous, peaceful setting in the Ozarks.
National Park trail minutes from our house.
Just past our driveway, descending into the valley.
Wild elk herds roam freely less than 10 minutes from our house.
Hay in our field.
I loved the simple white, the tin roof, the native fieldstone. Nothing fancy.
Our property was actually owned by our friends Scotty & D'Wana Villines at the time (it had been in his family for generations...and I will say here...they had nothing to do with any of the construction of the house. ha!) I remember removing my sun glasses to get a better look and D'Wana saying, "You haven't seen the inside. It's not fabulous."
D'Wana & Me
Our "local" coffee shop...45 minutes up the mountain. It's since closed and I deeply mourn these vintage red chairs.
I didn't see the inside of the house that day, as we were on our way to another of the Villines family homes nearby on the mountain to paint interior walls in preparation for Scotty & D'Wana to move in. In fact, I didn't see the inside of the little house until after we bought it. We didn't buy the place for the house, we bought it for the land. I knew we'd deal with whatever we found inside.
As I would learn later, D'Wana's "not fabulous" comment was no exaggeration. It may not be immediately obvious in the pics, but trust me, we would have had to fix it up just to use it as a hunting cabin. To make it livable as our family home on a shoestring budget with zero construction skills in a remote place in the winter was daunting.
This is the faux tile linoleum that was in every room. This happens to be the kitchen.
Standing in the front door, looking straight into the laundry hallway. To the left, the kitchen. To the right, the living room.
At least it was clean & there were new towels.
The original house was about 800 square feet or less, the size of a small apartment. There was one bedroom, one bathroom, a living room/kitchen combination and a "laundry hallway" in the middle of the house. There were three closets in the entire house. None of them was a walk-in. One was an unfinished water heater closet with no door. One was a broom closet. One was a bedroom closet with no door. So we left most things in storage and basically lived out of a suitcase. The only interior doors were on the broom closet (which we lost before we moved in, more on that later) and the bathroom.
The view from just inside the front door...laundry hallway to the left, bedroom with no door on the right.
Yes, that is a flyswatter hanging above the floor heater. Handy and homey.
You could stand in the front doorway and see into every room, except the bathroom. The walls had no texture on them. High gloss paint (in two colors) had been sponge-painted directly onto drywall. It was a sight to behold. The floors were old linoleum throughout the house that was peeling up at the corners. There was no central heat or air, just a gas floor heater and a window unit in the living room. All of the outlets were installed upside down. The ceiling was cafeteria-style ceiling tiles.
The house had never been lived in full-time. We were told it was only built so that city water could be run to the property. The house served as a landing place for over twenty years for family members and friends who were between homes or just starting out. Many people in our area have "camped out" temporarily in this house at one time or another while waiting for their house to be built or remodeled or to get on their feet. Still, just about every aspect of the construction was questionable and not-to-code because it was never meant to be anyone's full-time home. For months, I watched professionals shake their heads the first time they would come to repair pipes or lines or construction.
We are a family of five. At the time, our oldest son had graduated from high school and was still living in Texas; our two at home were fifteen and nine. *The first year, our daughter slept on the couch and our teenage son slept on an air-up mattress on the kitchen floor. He would roll it up in the mornings and roll it out at night. Yes, it got very old. When my husband was away on business trips, the treat for my daughter was to sleep on the real bed with me and our son got the couch. To give ourselves a break from clostrophobia, we'd sit out on one of the porches and take in the mountain views. [Put another dime in the therapy jar.]
*more later on why it took over a year to get traction on the remodel
Kit & Cali
These rural Texas ranch dogs were so happy to be in the cooler temps with soft, cool grass after surviving two years of extreme drought in Texas.
Front Porch Therapy...love the view of Scotty & D'Wana's pond just beyond the pine trees...
Capo & Kit...think happy thoughts
Did I mention, we homeschool? So we didn't even get a break during the weekdays. We were always. together. in. a. small. space. An hour from town.
Living in such close quarters with no privacy for so long teaches you a lot about yourself and your family. I wouldn't want to go back to living on top of each other in 800 square feet while remodeling said square footage, but I will say, the experience helped me hone some decorating skills & philosophies, to which I'll dedicate some future posts.
To be continued...
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