BISBEE - "Remuddled" is how Nanette Slusser describes the state of her home when she bought it.
What was thought to once have been the headquarters of the lumberyard had been turned into two apartments. And it languished on the real-estate market for more than a year.
It was quite the challenge for her husband, Tom Slusser, who embarked on a two-year project to turn the remuddle into a proper remodel.
He didn't realize he was in for uneven floors, sloping walls, a hidden staircase that accessed the attic, several added-on rooms, and a plywood "wall" that divided the rented rooms from the rest.
"It's nothing I've dealt with before," says Tom, who runs his own construction company. He moved in during the week (the couple also have a home in Tucson) and set up camp - literally. He had a tiny skillet to cook with, and he shivered through the bitterly cold Bisbee nights that first winter.
About that staircase: It ran from a small closet to the attic. The Slussers believe the former owners put it in so the husband could access a makeshift TV den up there.
The staircase is now removed and the closet is the laundry closet.
While the Slussers saw that the place needed a new lease on life, they were keen to maintain an old-fashioned feel to the interior of the home, built in 1900 .
Laminate flooring, mosaic backsplashes, walk-in showers and soothing paint in chocolate, sage and beige sit happily with more traditional touches like wooden pillars, country-style white cabinetry and, in the master bedroom, a window seat (Tom's solution for covering up some of that sloping wall). They installed air conditioning and heating, closed up the exposed rafters to create a ceiling, and shifted walls and doorways to tweak the home's footprint. Along the way they added a half-bathroom as well as space to the three bedrooms and two bathrooms that were already there.
The furniture is a mix of their existing pieces - some of it reupholstered - and historic finds from auctions and antique stores.
A porch that runs along two sides of the building has been repainted and new posts put in. The minimal backyard, once just concrete and dirt, has been partially landscaped; the couple has turned to container gardening, growing flowers and a wealth of vegetables. And Tom is turning a sheer rock face the house backs onto into its own feature - a waterfall has been designed to run down the rocks.
The Slussers inherited a curious entryway problem with the property, which sits next to the town's Mule Gulch, running alongside one of Bisbee's main streets. Car and pedestrian access was by a side alley that crosses over the Gulch.
One of the first things Tom did was to have a bridge built from the road, so that he had parking for his car, and visitors could access the front porch from a new set of steps. Now, cucumbers, squash and tomatoes fill planters along the steps, making for a sometimes treacherous harvesting process; Nanette has been known to teeter on the edge of the Gulch to pick them.
The idea was to have this as a weekend vacation home, but the Slussers quickly fell in love with it. Now, Tom lives here most of the week and Nanette joins him for a few days, then the two drive to Tucson for the last of the weekend. Then he returns to Bisbee, where he's remodeling another historic home (although this one they intend to sell).
This weekend the Slussers will show off the fruits of their labors when their lumberyard home is part of the annual Historic Bisbee Home Tour, featuring 11 turn-of-the-century houses in a town that, during its copper-mining heyday, had 20,000 inhabitants. Now the population stands at just under 6,000.
If you go
2010 Historic Bisbee "Miners' Delight" Home Tour
• When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
• Tickets: $15 ($12 in advance), children (2-13) $5, active military $10. Tickets and information available from Bisbee Visitors Center, 1-520-432-3554 or 1-866-224 7233. Proceeds will benefit various local charities.
Resources
Tom Slusser runs TS Remodeling & Maintenance, 1-520-245-6709.
Contact Gillian Drummond at gcdrummond@aol.com or visit her blog at www.homeisafourletterword.com
