PARK RAPIDS ENTERPRISE
Spring homegarden
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2018
SMART HOME
Couple crafts used items into a space of their own By Robin Fish rfish@parkrapidsenterprise.com
The dining room’s stained concrete floor used to be covered by a carpet, when it was an extension of the clinic building that once The accepted definition of a “smart home” housed a church and a fitness facility, at is a house or apartment where the thermodifferent times. stat, lights, security and home entertainWhat used to be the clinic’s back door now ment can all be controlled from the owner’s opens into the garage. The home’s front and tablet or smartphone. back door came from a construction compaLocal couple T. J. and Rose Smart applied ny at scratched-and-dented prices. a different kind of “smarts” to build a home Some of the pantry shelves are lined with adjacent to Smart Chiropractic Center in scrap pieces of linoleum from the kitchen Park Rapids. floor. Primary construction took place in 2012. A couple of closets have doors that open They continue to add finishing touches like a French windows; they used to be and décor. In a recent whirlwind tour of bi-fold doors, with the hinge in the middle. the Smart home, T. J. pointed out a variety Smart picked them up at garage sales and of ways the couple used secondhand and reconfigured them. repurposed materials to create an attractive Scrap pieces of kitchen countertop materiand comfortable living space. al found its way onto window sills throughSome of their choices are ones anyone out the house, as well as backsplashes for could make, like hanging prints that look sinks, the stove and the master bathtub. like oil paintings in a certain light, and Pieces cut from the same scraps tie together keeping an eye out for deals at consignthe decor in each room. ment stores and garage sales. Other design A Walmart storage cube with made-to-fit concepts showed a creative flair for making vinyl tubs occupies one corner of the kitchuseless things useful again. en as a coffee bar. On the opposite wall, Their concept of “recycling you can live a window provides sunlight for a collecin” went back as far as clearing the site tion of outdoor plants spending the winter before building began. T.J. Smart installed gliding barn doors made of exterior indoors. More plants hang in baskets from “Some new material was utilized,” Smart siding material, wooden lath (typically used for mount- the garage-door track and fill window sills said, “but when and if we could, we tried to ing sheetrock), metal bookends, steel dowels and pulley in the clinic, some of them gifted or rescued use stuff from the old building that we tore blocks on the laundry closet of the house he built adja- from owners who would have let them die. down, or stuff that we recycled or repurcent to Smart Chiropractic on Bridge Street in Park Rap- Kept indoors year-round is a 10-year-old posed.” orchid plant that still blooms. ids. (Photos by Robin Fish/Enterprise) Repurposed: Put to work doing a different Smart said he purchased recycled PVC job from what an item was originally expected to do. (polyvinyl chloride, a construction-grade plastic) to line the sides and Portions of the clinic building form what is now the house’s front tops of the home’s windows, which he said made it easy to wipe up entryway and the dining room. Outside walls have come inside, their condensation and prevent mold getting inside the walls. concrete-block origins concealed by painted drywall. The couple cut an opening in a large butcher block to form the surRubberized flooring, made from recycled tires, will soon be laid down in a front area of the house. SMART HOME: Page 18
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