By Linda Mason Hunter

© 2007 Linda Mason Hunter.  May not be reprinted without written permission of the author.

Dad and Grandma Nelle building the living room, circa 1954

Before my dad got his hands on it, the house I grew up in was a classic Craftsman bungalow, a common cookie-cutter house found throughout the Midwest--two bedrooms with wide front porch, tiny kitchen, and small rear "grocer's porch." But Dad changed all that. Through the sheer force of his will and perseverance, the one-story structure became a laboratory for nurturing his do-it-yourself skills. Before we knew what was happening the house grew like Topsy, becoming an eccentric one-of-a-kind fairytale house that shall remain in my memory forever as the epitomy of home.

Linda and Skip, circa 1950

Back then we were poor. My parents were one of those hastily-married World War II couples with more style than money. Dad studied law day and night while Mother painstakingly parceled their meager savings on family necessities--food, shoes, and an occasional trip to the dentist. We savored the rare luxury like Dickens' urchins sampling chocolate. But I lived in a rich constantly-evolving house--bright colors, fresh air, worn quilts, and comfy down pillows stuffed by Grandma's hand.

In my mind my mother initiated the transformation one sultry July day in 1951 when I was a small child and Dad was away on his annual weeklong fishing trip. I never knew what prompted Mother's blue mood that summer's day. What I do remember is her determination to perk herself up by painting the walls of our kitchen jet black with big shocking pink polka dots. The effect was startling, especially in a kitchen.

When Dad first saw what Mother had done to the kitchen, he stared slack jawed in disbelief, inhaled sharply, and seemed to hold his breath forever while Mother matter-of-factly explained the change made her feel better, brightened her spirits. And it obviously had for she exuded good cheer. After the initial shock passed Dad gathered her in his arms and kissed her hard. Her bold style was, after all, what attracted him to her in the first place. That single moment widened the boundaries between them, permitting him to realize his creativity, as well. And he proceeded to do so, year in and year out razing walls at will to give our modest bungalow more breathing room.

My brother and I quickly adjusted to the gritty taste of sawdust in our cereal, the sound of hammering late at night, and complete metamorphoses taking place while we slept. Dad was born under a lucky star, blessed with the vision to imagine possibilities, what he called "green weenies" and Mother called "your Father's little enthusiasms." Once he clearly envisioned a new room, a better layout, a solution to a frustrating problem, the walls came tumbling down. Nothing could stand in his way.

One bright spring morning I returned home from Sunday school to find our humble bathroom exposed to the world, its exterior wall lying in a heap in the driveway. We showered at our neighbor’s house for a month.

The summer of my eighth year the dining room wall disappeared, a thin sheet of diaphanous plastic our only protection from the elements. Dad worked weekends and evenings that summer, often long past midnight. His mother visited from the country on weekends, dressed in faded overalls and carrying life's necessities in a brown paper bag. They built the foundation together, Grandma Nelle mixing concrete, then loading it wet and heavy into a wheelbarrow while Dad laid up brick one by one.

Four months later we officially moved into the new living room complete with everything a middle-class Fifties family needed to gain respectability--front foyer, hall closet, wall-to-wall carpet, living room fireplace, and big picture window overlooking the backyard patio--second-hand paving brick laid in a sand circle around the lumpy old apple tree. The tree added character, he claimed (he hadn't the heart to cut it down). As the final coup de grace, he and Mother painted the entire house barn red because that color was discounted the day they bought the paint.

In the end it was a marvelous house built just for us with sweat, laughter, and DNA embedded in the mortar. Unlike the predictable suburban houses my wealthier classmates lived in, our house had style born of Dad's enthusiasm, economy, and energy leavened with Mother's audacity. Because they did it themselves our house had soul, a living, breathing spirit evolving along with us, the stage upon which we acted out the story our lives.

After I moved into a house of my own, Mom and Dad sold the homeplace to developers itching to build a state-of-the-art nursing home. Houses on our side of the street fell like dominoes. One day our house stood proudly on its hillock, next day it was a heap of rubble. The chaotic pile of plaster, brick, and splintered wood pierced my heart like a bullet, a clean hole threatening to become a chasm. My very psyche seemed disassembled. Havoc wrought. A beloved symbol rendered invisible forever. It was inevitable.

I've spent a lifetime recreating the comfort and delight I found in that house. It's been a rich and satisfying journey. From the first home "on my own" (a tin quonset hut at the state university renting for $28 a month) to the century-old farmhouse where I reared my children and now play with grandchildren, I've fixed up and painted, torn down walls and refinished floors, hand-stripped woodwork, lugged furniture, replastered walls, hung new light fixtures, and nurtured gardens. Along the way I discovered what my soul looks like and how blessed I become when wrapped in its essence. Working on my house has been an exhilarating and satisfying journey, a constant evolution in which my surroundings mirror my personal story.

It's a journey anyone can take. Your home is a place where you can work your magic and discover that, yes, you have magic within you. The secret is to do much of the work yourself. What you get in the end is more than a house anyone could live in. What you get is a home, a place of nurture and regeneration, a hiding place for your soul. There are few things in life more fulfilling than that.