Supplying a unique house with Habitat ReStore building materials
Editor’s note: Damon and his wife, Catherine, acquired a substantial amount of building materials for the interior of their dream house-barn from their local Habitat ReStore, including all of the kitchen cabinetry, hardwood flooring, bathroom cabinetry, interior and exterior doors, most of the light fixtures, and all of the windows.
I am a city boy, having grown up in Philadelphia and spent 10 years in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Arlington, Virginia. My wife, on the other hand, is a country girl and ardent lover of horses, having spent much of her formative years living on a farm.
In 2008, we purchased a piece of land in Apex, North Carolina, with the idea to build a barn and house so that she could keep her competition horses at home and care for them herself. Upon researching options for barn construction and outlining our budget, we came to the realization that after purchasing the land, we could not embark upon the building of both the barn and the home at the same time. So we made a unique decision – we combined the two structures into one. We decided to build a two-story building with stables on the first floor and 1,300 square feet of living quarters on the second floor – a house-barn.
As we proceeded to bring this concept to fruition, we found a company that specializes in just these types of designs, and we bought the plans, as well as the exterior and stable materials from them. The building was designed so that there are no interior load-bearing walls, meaning that we could design the interior living space with no constraints. All walls could be floating walls.
The exterior wood and the wood for the horse stalls came from the Pacific Northwest as part of the construction kit. We were left to our own devices to find the materials for the inside of the home – a daunting task, especially on a limited budget.
My interior designer mother-in-law and my wife made multiple trips to our local Habitat for Humanity of Wake County ReStore in Raleigh, North Carolina, searching for material that would allow us to create the home environment we had envisioned within the budget we could afford. The ReStore was our saving grace.
On the first trip to the ReStore, we were able to purchase all of our kitchen cabinetry, hardwood flooring, bathroom cabinetry, interior and exterior doors, and all of our windows. On our second trip, we found some of our lighting fixtures. The cabinetry had been pulled out of a brand-new condo at the PNC Tower in Raleigh; the buyer wanted different cabinets. So we got beautiful matching cabinets for an entire kitchen and two bathrooms. We also have matching windows throughout the home and a real highlight – a huge picture window for the bedroom that overlooks one of the horse pastures and gives us the most beautiful views when we wake up in the morning.
When people visit our farm, they are in awe of the serenity and beauty of the land and are shocked at the elegance of the residence that sits above a barn. We could never have achieved that without the help of the ReStore.
Damon Chetson is a defense attorney and founder of The Chetson Firm. He lives in Raleigh with his wife, Catherine Winter, three French Bulldogs, and their horse named Coquette.