#681 Arkansas Architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright's art inspires us.  We also look to his student, the regional architect Fay Jones for art in architecture. We travel across the state line to Arkansas for some of that Fay Jones inspiration.

On our agenda are the Thorncrown Chapel and the Stoneflower Cottage.  We are inspired indeed.
Stoneflower Cottage was built first in 1965 and served as a model for Thorncrown Chapel built 15 years later. 

Stoneflower Cottage in the woods near Heber Springs

Thorncrown Chapel in the woods near Eureka Springs

"I've always felt that the details, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, are more than just nice things to notice.  They are manifestation and expression, a kind of measure of the intensity of caring." - Fay Jones

Jones clearly cared about the Stoneflower Cottage, a place of physical rest.

loft in Stoneflower Cottage

And he cared about the award-winning Thorncrown Chapel, a place of spiritual rest.

interior of Thorncrown Chapel

Yours in learning what we like from Mr Jones,
Mary

#680 Ozarks Bungalow Design

We've done much research through the years to prepare for our Ozarks Bungalow renovation project.  For inspiration, we like to look at Frank Lloyd Wright's designs.  Yes, it's hard work but we're dedicated.

So far, we've stayed overnight in two Wright houses:

Schwartz house in Two Rivers, WI for our 10th wedding anniversary

Penfield House in Willoughby Hills, OH for our 20th

We've also stayed in two Wright-designed hotels:

Wright's Historic Park Inn in Mason City, IA

Wright's Price Tower in Bartlesville, OK

And we've visited about 40 other Wright buildings along the way including the Yodoko Guest House near Kobe, Japan.

We've learned much.  We especially like built-in light fixtures and built-in furniture, open floor plans, and common motifs that tie rooms together such as consistent lighting or continuous flooring.  A house doesn't have to be big if it's designed well.  

Yours in learning what we like from Mr Wright,
Mary

#679 Construction Debris

So far, our home renovation project has generated a TON of construction debris!

For photographic evidence, here's a pile of 6 months of construction debris secreted away in our garage.  Recently, we had the joy of moving the debris (sheet rock scraps, plaster, lathe, kitchen ceramic floor tiles, plywood) out of our garage into a dumpster.

 

And we hauled away our metal construction debris to the local recycling shop.

The cash for the metal is, of course, welcome.

But the biggest reward of all is this spacious drive-in garage!

Yours in loving a good purge,
Mary

#678 Lighting the Ozarks Bungalow

Lighting is important and as we get older, we all need more.

So as you can imagine, lighting is a big topic of conversation around our home during remodeling projects.  Through the years, Kelly has built several stained glass lamps and back in 2001, he even built these rustic metal and mica wall sconces for our friend Joyce's cabin.

But for our Ozarks Bungalow renovation, Kelly does not need to build our lamps.  Instead, our friend Matthew discovered two perfect lamps at Charlottesville's Habitat Restore.  The Deschutes Chandelier sells for $950 at Rejuvenation Lighting, but Matthew purchases two for a tenth of the price and with much appreciation and celebration, we pick them up in Charlottesville earlier this year.     

Some modifications are needed, so Kelly shortens the over-long down-rod and turns the lamps up rather than down.  (I never did care to look at a bare bulb.)

 And Voila!  We now have a classic Craftsman chandelier hanging in our living room and our parlor.

Thank goodness for Matthew or Kelly may have been tempted to recreate this sled lamp.

Yours in appreciation of good lighting,
Mary

#677 Crane Creek to Ozarks Bungalow

We became the fifth owners of our 101-year-old Ozarks Bungalow when we purchased it in 2009 from the fourth owner - local celebrity Wayne Holmes.

"Wayne was salty, opinionated, rough-edged, and devoted to the things he held dear, which included his countryside, his stories, his family, Shakespeare, and good writing." - Steve Wiegenstein

Wayne also held dear the Ozarks Bungalow. In a captivating tale, he told us how he had always loved the house and one day, he just walked up to the front door and rang the door bell.  When the third owners answered, he offered to buy it on the spot and named his price.

Previously on this blog, we've told the story of how we came to own the Ozarks Bungalow: finding a For Sale sign in the yard via Google Street View from 1,000 miles away.  During the purchase process, we had the opportunity to meet Wayne and his lovely wife Mary Lou and hear first-hand their story of how they came to own it. Wayne was the consummate storyteller and we have a copy of his memoir Rocky Comfort to prove it. He passed away in September 2014 but not before he had the chance to live in his dream house and leave his mark upon it.

Wayne and Mary Lou had a country home along Crane Creek.  From there, they transplanted a variety of trees around the yard of the Ozarks Bungalow and installed a bent Osage Orange fence post at just the right angle to be used as a hand rail for the deck.

Wayne saved the green roof tiles from a building being demolished on his home campus of Drury University and reused them as a slate floor in the sun porch.  He added a pellet stove and created another living space to be used year round.  (This sun porch is perfect for our interim living room during our renovation.)

Wayne transported tons of rocks from Crane Creek in order to build a long (100 feet) rock wall along the west edge of the property.   

Wayne and Mary Lou placed a canning bucket along the rock wall to give us a lovely view from the kitchen window.

They also installed a canning bucket for a mailbox at their Crane Creek home.  I love that connection between the two properties.

Yours in appreciation of the great care taken of the Ozarks Bungalow through the years,
Mary

#676 Ozarks Bungalow flooring

A lot has been happening at our Ozarks Bungalow.

Lately, we've been focused on flooring.  In the photo below, the living room floor in the background had been covered with carpeting that we removed in August. Then there's a gap where the wall used to be and the kitchen flooring is in the foreground.

The kitchen floor was covered with tile and we removed that in February.

Underneath both of those floor coverings, we found tongue-in-groove 1.5-inch white oak and that's what we want to keep.  So in preparation for refinishing the living room and kitchen floors, Kelly has been installing new flooring to fill the gap between the two rooms.

Two-year-old Sam is a big help.  He especially likes to deliver nails from the nail box to Kelly's hand -

unless, of course, he's way too busy eating grapes.

Yours in flooring,
Mary

#675 Butterfield Overland Mail Route in Missouri

Five miles south of our home, the historic Butterfield Overland Mail Route meanders through the Missouri Ozarks and we are on a mission to find it!

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company held the US government contract for mail delivery between Saint Louis and San Francisco from 1857 to 1861.  Using stagecoaches, celerity wagons, and 139 horse relay stations along the route, the mail could be delivered nearly 3,000 miles in 25 days.

We knew parts of the old trail still existed, so we set out to find it.  Lucky for us, the route comes close to our home and there's a map guy in the family.

Sometimes the trail is easy to find - such as when the road is labeled "Butterfield Trail Road."  (I bet those stagecoach drivers would have loved a Garmin GPS!)  

Other sections of the trail, though, are not so easy to find.  But if you persevere, you will see some beautiful Missouri country and come closer to imagining what it might have been like to travel by stage 150 years ago.

Waterman Ormsby, a reporter for the New York Herald, was the only through passenger on the first coach to leave Saint Louis.  For his first-hand account of the 24-day trip beginning September 26, 1858, be sure to read:

Ormsby, Waterman Lilly, Lyle Henry Wright, and Josephine M. Bynum. 1942. The Butterfield overland mail. San Marino, Calif: The Huntington library. 

Yours in traveling by pretend-stagecoach through beautiful Missouri,
Mary