by East, Ginny;
The romance of living in the country—the charm and grace and simplicity I associated to living among the trees— was now fading in the harsh dawn of reality. Life in Blue Ridge was wonderful for a retired visitor living in an upscale cabin for weekend visits. People from a background like ours shopped in the area’s antique stores and rustic art galleries, took classes at the art center, boated on the lake, and meandered through craft festivals thinking life in the mountains is sweet. But underneath the quaint charm of the neighborhood coffee shop, beyond the lilting accents of shopkeepers and the cute smiles of friendly cowboys, lurked a wealth of sad stories and threatening circumstances that I had no choice but to acknowledge now. My new understanding of the sad, dark side of the fulltime residents who were not transplants made me fear just how skewed my children’s perceptions were of what was a normal, opportunistic existence for people of our socioeconomic class. I did want my children exposed to a less consumption-driven world, for I recognized the value in their not growing up to believe a sugarcoated world and a life of entitlement was the norm, but I hated that they were totally removed from mainstream America where opportunity was profoundly infinite and a greater emphasis on higher education and liberal thinking prevailed.
To grow up balanced, secure, and whole, my kids needed the world we left behind just as badly as they once needed exposure to a country existence. I no longer craved a trip to Paris for my own curiosity about the bigger world. I now craved a trip, anywhere, for the whole family, a trip to remind us all that there was a vibrant life out there bigger than Blue Ridge, filled with life’s marvels.
Things bloom in the city the same way they bloom in the country. Flowers. People. Ideas.
For me, now, doubts were in bloom.
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
—Henry David Thoreau
MY MARTHA STEWART BARN
After months of my dropping blatant hints, Mark announced that he was going to build me a barn. This wasn’t because he was disturbed by my toiling over animals in the sleet, rain, and mud (after all, I made that bed myself by assembling an animal entourage). No, he just wanted to provide additional work for the boys building our house so they wouldn’t take a job elsewhere and become unavailable for the next building project he had in mind.
“Perhaps we should hold off. Money is tight and the payments we’re supposed to be getting from the Smiths have been so irregular,” I said. “I’m worried the school may be failing now.”
“You’ve been whining about a barn for months, and now that I’m giving you one, you’re complaining?”
“Of course not. I just think we should be a bit conservative under the circumstances.”
He sighed, clearly exasperated with my endless lack of enthusiasm for his generosity. I should be overjoyed with his plans, considering how badly I wanted a barn.
Mark made clear that he was in charge of any and all building projects, but I’d been reading barn plans and studying horse stable designs in magazines for months with hope that someday our fifty acres would evolve to be more like those affordable turnkey farms I wished we’d settled for. I decided that, if we were really going to build a barn now to keep Ronnie employed, I might as well campaign for a few practical elements that would make my life easier.
Together, Mark and I designed a traditional two-story barn, with two roomy 12X12 stalls and covered paddocks the size of another stall connected to each as roaming space for the animals. If I closed the stall doors, I could use the outside paddocks as two open air stalls, sort of a convertible system to house four animals comfortably when necessary. I even made the interior fence rails removable so I could open up the space to create a bigger paddock or to make the stall area one duplex if I wanted.
Opposite the paddocks we planned a covered area for hay storage and on either end of the hallway were double doors big enough to drive a tractor through. We ran electricity to the barn for when winter hours stole the light early and to install a pump to bring water from the creek. Hallelujah!
Opposite the stalls were a feed and tack room, both with concrete floors; a workbench, and dozens of hooks on which to hang supplies. The upstairs of the barn featured a traditional hay door, but this was more for looks than for resale. Getting the heavy bales up was more trouble than I could handle on my own, so this area became designated space for storing beekeeping supplies, fiber, cages, incubators, and anything else animal or garden related. The second floor provided a dry place to keep newly hatched chicks or peacocks too, my very own clubhouse, welcoming messy projects with open arms. I even had a small concrete pad with a roof overhead in front of the feed room as a tiny patio to shelter a small bistro table and a rocking bench.
Thanks to the high quality of the leftover wood from our house and the innovative design that was both functional and attractive, we created a superb barn. Best of all, the barn was all mine, so I immediately set out to make the structure look like mine.
I bought life-size black plywood cutouts of rearing horses and had them affixed to the front of the barn, framing a wagon wheel that served as a base for an outdoor light fixture. I put a bigger-than-life cutout of a soaring eagle on the back side, and hung iron hooks made of western stars and horse shoes, for ropes and such. I found a huge horseshoe welcome sign for the front door and a rusty equestrian-decorated bell for the porch, and hung baskets of flowers and a wreath on the feed room door. Wooden cutouts of horses, painted with the words “feed” and “tack,” labeled storage areas. I even had little street signs printed at the mall with the names of my horses to honor each of their stalls, and bought a stop sign that said “WHOA” instead of “STOP” to hang on the hitching post. Inspired, I picked up other gimmicky cowboy signs that I hung up with a bulletin board that proudly displayed a horse calendar.
To say my barn was cute would be an understatement.
“It’s a barn, dear. Not a kid’s theme bedroom. You’ve made a nice barn into something girly. Kinda embarrassing,” Mark complained.
“You think this barn is girly?” I glanced at my horse paraphernalia. “Well, maybe so. But hey, I’m a girl. This is my barn. Naturally, I would have a girly barn.”
“Don’t you think the rearing horse cutouts are over the top?” “You think I should have gotten the leaning cowboy cutout and put him up against the gate instead?”
“You’re missing the point.”
I leaned against my new horse dung shovel, complete with a cowboy hat engraved handle. “When we were planting daffodils, you told me the animal area was mine to make as pretty as I wanted.”
“I was talking landscaping.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. In another month my mixed-color flower bulbs will be erupting everywhere, putting the pièce de résistance on this beautiful barn.”
He mumbled that other barns in the neighborhood were nothing more than barely-functioning buildings with slat walls and sections of roof missing.
“There is something endearing about an ancient building made of rough barn-wood, especially when covered in weeds and sporting cracks and bullet holes,” Mark explained.
“Had we bought a turnkey homestead with a rundown barn and used the saved time and money for taking a trip or two, we’d have that kind, but you wanted to build our Shangri-La yourself. This is the result,” I pointed out. “And for the record, most workshops around here are makeshift buildings too, and you instead built yourself two huge, decorative structures that could just as well be a second house.
He ignored that reality check. The next time we were out on a drive, he pointed to a weathered wreck of a barn that must have been fifty years old. “You have to admit a barn like t
his is quaint!”
“Whoever owns that place needs a plaque that says ‘Every cowgirl deserves a great stud’ . . . and a horseshoe clock,” I said with a sniff.
Since he now knew I was not about to remove my horseshoe coat rack in the interest of pretending my new barn was some kind of shabby-chic old wreck, Mark made clear to our country friends that he had nothing to do with what he now referred to as “my wife’s Martha Stewart barn.”
“Now, I’m not claiming to know everything, ‘cause I only have ‘bout a sixth grade education, but I think Ginny’s barn is just fine. I’d have a barn like that if I could afford it,” Ronnie said.
“See! Ronnie thinks my barn decorations are classy,” I said to Mark. “Just because you’re building a million dollar rustic log house doesn’t mean you know squat about barns.”
When my farrier came to shoe the horses, I took his visit as a perfect opportunity to get a second opinion.
“Nice barn, but where’s the couch gonna go?” Chris said with a grin.
“Are you making fun of my barn?”
“Are you kidding? It’s a great barn. Your barn is nicer than my house. I particularly like the horseshoe napkin holder on your bistro table.”
“Considering all the time I spend with these animals, I figured I might as well make the environment inviting.”
“I like the horse bell. The horseshoe sign is nice too. I’d like ‘em more, had you bought those things from me, considering I have thousands of used horseshoes without purpose. Now, if you could just do something about that awful noise coming from the tack room...”
It took me a moment to comprehend what noise he was referring to. My boom box radio got reception from only three stations: a country station, a Christian rock station and a classical music station. Under the circumstances, I chose the classical station. I rather liked Beethoven serenading me as I shoveled horseshit or polished a leather saddle.
“I’ve been shoeing horses all my life, and I can honestly say I ain’t never been to no barn with that kind of music playing. What’s wrong with good old country music?”
“I’ll stick to rhythm and blues or classical music,” I said. “Listen with an open mind and you might develop an appreciation for the finer things in life.”
“I’ll just hammer louder,” Chris mumbled.
“Some things can’t be drowned out, even with a blacksmith’s hammer,” I said, “class being one.”
Considering my boots were covered with horseshit and my nails were dirt encrusted, I got the response I deserved—good natured laughter.
“Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on? —Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur.”
—Henry David Thoreau
THE HOUSE FINALE
Mark had been working relentlessly on his dream house for over a year now. Each day, I’d drive to the land to take care of my animals, and then I would drive a four-wheeler up to the house site to see how things were coming along. Mark would be there, covered from head to toe in sawdust as he debarked and sanded over eighty trees to be a part of the stairway, a support column, archway, or roof beam. Slowly the home took shape, growing grander in proportion and stature each day. Clearly my husband was no longer building a dream house for his family, but the dream house of his imagination, a stately, sophisticated lodge that rivaled anything you might see on Extreme Log Homes, his favorite reality TV show.
“How big is this house going to be?” I said, awed by a 25-foot ceiling in the great room and the equally-high stone work around the fireplace, embedded with fossils and geodes.
“7,500 feet under roof,” Mark said, not taking his eyes off the beauty-band of river rock a workman was cementing along the circumference of the room. He barked an order at two workers hanging solid oak cabinets in the kitchen and rolled his eyes and whispered, “Can you believe these guys, hanging cabinets without considering the inset space for lighting requirements?”
Considering our last home in Florida was only 1,700 feet and the cabin we had been staying in was half that (and both were simple abodes), I didn’t know whether to panic or squeal with joy over the size and grandeur of his project. We had discussed simplifying our life and scaling down, but we also discussed a need for a home big enough for our family to enjoy before the last of our kids left for college. I suppose my dreaming about a family home with a big kitchen promoting family gatherings and space to play games or watch TV to promote togetherness sent a mixed message; nevertheless, I voiced my concern, thinking Mark had been confused about our agreed-upon life simplicity plan. This home was never a part of our joint vision. We talked of a simple log cabin home, and agreed we couldn’t spend more than four hundred grand on the project. To me, that investment was plenty for a pretty fantastic cabin.
“Can we afford this?” I whispered, unable to imagine us living in anything so spectacular. “This house has become awfully big.”
“You said you needed an office of your own. You wanted a good sized kitchen. When I told you we could finish off the basement and put in a workout room, you were thrilled. Most importantly, this house has big closets. I’ve manifested everything you asked for,” he snapped.
I had three horses, a donkey, two llamas, chickens, other birds, and angora rabbits outdoors, and a laptop precariously balanced on a makeshift desk in a corner of our simple, uninsulated, 30 year old cabin. I already had everything I wanted. Everything, that is, except a husband to share all my newfound freedom with. An impressive house was not something I ever wanted or cared about. What I wanted and cared about was the man building it.
I stared at the antler chandelier Mark chose after weeks of perusing rustic galleries. My eyes slipped to the thick log fireplace mantle he’d spent days making to his satisfaction, and moved on to the oversized Jacuzzi tub perfectly sized for a man of his large stature. I observed the massive stairway leading to Mark’s office, positioned in such a way that once he was up there, he could oversee the entire downstairs like a king gazing upon his kingdom.
One thing was obvious: this house was a not something a man seeking a stress-free life would build for his wife and children. Mark had built this house for himself, a place that embodied everything he considered impressive and fitting to his style and taste.
I wanted to be a devoted wife who supports her husband’s dreams, but the escalating investment left me sick with worry. There was no stopping the trajectory of the project now, so rather than continue to complain of his opulence, I decided to at least make evidently clear certain elements I felt were important, such as extra light in my office and in the kitchen pantry for my 45-year-old eyes. I reminded him over and over how badly I wanted a double oven and a good cooktop in the kitchen since I was an avid cook with plans to make canning, storing, and processing food a part of our organic lifestyle. So much of my life had always been devoted to the drudgery of doing the family laundry, and with mud and sawdust besieging our world now more than ever, I really did need a supersized washing machine. My fitness level declined every month, something that wreaked havoc on my self-image, so I pushed him to finish off the workout room, too, if he could do it inexpensively. A gorgeous house wasn’t half as important as a functional house to me and I pointed out plenty of huge houses we’d seen cost a fraction of what Mark was spending now, but he responded by pointing out how cheap they were with their stock cabinetry or prefab stonework. He could do so much better. His house design would be a work of art. I began thinking that if I let him build something grand, we’d at least have something to sell later that would fetch a good price.
&n
bsp; But more than anything, I wished he would stop building all together. I wanted our life to be a work of art, while he wanted the building we hung our hats in to be his art.
He installed four fireplaces and stoned the back screened-in porch and the patio with expensive slate. He bought special order windows, awesome light fixtures, and an upscale generator so we’d never have to worry about blackouts. He spent a fortune on labor to get every detail perfect, preferring to supervise rather than do these tasks himself. Having overspent on fancy detail and materials, he had no choice but to cut corners in other places. Usually this meant forgoing the things I wanted most. He picked a stove smaller than the stove I formerly had in Florida and I was more than a little disappointed that hand hewn molding and fancy cabinetry took precedence over my desire for a down-to-earth welcoming kitchen made for cooking and gathering people together.
As the bills came rolling in, Mark would comment that the things I demanded, such as a few extra ceiling lights in my office, were the reason the house was costing far more than he anticipated. “I’m over budget because of everything you want me to do,” he said.
I reminded him one more time that I had taken him to a builder and we had spent a day designing a beautiful home with as much space and functionality as we wanted and the price was one third of what he’d spent so far. When he had refused to sign the contract, his reasoning was he could build us a better house for less money. What happened?
“This house is my art,” he said, as if that concept made the project worthy of every last cent of our family resources.