^ vintage spaces
Here little details were preserved from the previous owners, such as the ornate woodwork on the side of the staircase.
strong work ethic — helped them see the house’s renovation step by step. Some parts of the original house, they kept, including a wooden support beam that stands at the center of their living room, as well as the original wood floors, painted the same stunning, clean white as the walls and high ceilings. “The floors were all natural wood,” says Brenda. “Over the years, they turned pumpkin orange, and it’s taken us a couple of years to paint them. “We did most of the work ourselves, but we splurged on windows. We wanted to see why we were here — nature and all of that,” says Brenda, adding that only one room in their house has curtains of any kind. For two people who have made antiques their life’s work, the hard work wasn’t unlike Mark’s former career in construction, from which he recently retired. “I stay busier now than I ever did in my old job,” he laughs. When they’re not repainting, rewiring, reupholstering, and renovating antiques, they’re loading up their RV and driving throughout the
A well used brush is given its own stage to shine under a glass dome.
he says, pointing behind him. “We were looking at it, but then we walked on top of the hill and saw this little farmhouse sitting there. We asked, ‘What’s that?’” It was a house that belonged to a recently deceased family member, and had yet to be listed for sale. The couple took a peek inside the small, four-bedroom, pea green farmhouse and instantly fell in love with its charm. But there was work to be done — the
house had no bathroom and no plumbing — and the Great Flood of 1993, which inundated parts of Missouri and threatened great swaths of land surrounding cities, didn’t help matters. Brenda recalls crying with her husband as she feared their dream basement would never come to fruition. Another kind of retirement Another trait Mark and Brenda share — their
14 VINTAGEKC SPRING 2018
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