the junk house

Ten years ago, when we decided to move from the burbs to the country, we were planning to buy a bit of acreage and build a home. We ended up buying the second place we looked at. It had it all. A great view of the mountains, a pond with fish, and green fields. It was a peaceful, rural setting - just what we wanted to start our new way of life. It was the perfect piece of land. With just one exception. Actually several exceptions. Rather large exceptions. It came with this......

The Junk House

Notice the lovely bright blue astro turf? It's covering up the gaping holes in the porch flooring. And who doesn't enjoy a nice refrigerator on their front porch. A lovely way to offer guests a beverage before they even knock on the door. "Hi there, guests - welcome to Montucky! Grab a brewski and watch your step!" Not exactly the picture I was hoping to paint for our beautiful country life.

Back view.

Note the hot tub on the back porch that, until today, I hadn't thought about for about nine years. The nightmares will return tonight. The "garage" on the end was an obvious add on, the peak of the roof covered part of the upstairs bedroom window, and the living room window downstairs looked into the garage. Charming.

A little distance helps....a little.

The farther you get, the better it looks.

I loved the property, but despised the house and it's hideous group of outbuildings (a post all their own, coming soon.) I suggested to my husband that we see if we could potentially buy the property, minus the five acres or so that the house occupied. He pointed out that if we didn't buy it and fix it up, we'd be living next to it forever. Good point.

We ended up buying the whole property, and thus began the biggest project of our lives. A total gutting, almost ten years, and many changes of plans later we still have two doorknobs to put on and a couple pieces of baseboard trim to install, but we're pretty much there.

*My youngest just walked in and saw the old house pictures laying about. He said "I remember those days! Those ugly days." He was the one who coined the phrase "Junk House." He was five when we moved here and absolutely couldn't comprehend that the house would ever be livable. He would tear up and ask why we bought a junk house instead of a real house. It took a long time, but we finally got it up to his standards.

Here's an after shot.

Dear Meadowbrook Cottage,
Thank you for hanging in there for 97 years before we found you. Your potential shined (shone?) through the dead mouse bodies and the chicken manure on the floor, and it didn't take long before I had every room color picked and every piece of furniture placed. In my mind anyway. In reality, it took a very, very long time to get you where you are today. You're a good, fine house.

p.s. Here's a photo of our place in days gone by. Our neighbor's grandma had lived in our house at one time, and they found this photo among her things.