This Tiny Bungalow Was Destined for the Wrecking Ball
Softer souls might have deemed this home a “tear-down,” but it found just the right search-and-rescue team.
Nostalgia can be a powerful thing. For Texas couple Melissa and Roy Duckworth and their builder son Clay (Duckworth Custom Homes), the pull of the past was so strong that they spent the better part of three years restoring a rundown turn-of-the-last-century bungalow that many others would have torn down. “I just love old houses,” Melissa says. “I have great memories of my grandparents’ and great-uncle’s old board-and-batten homes in East Texas. They were plain but full of treasures that somehow fit together.”
So when Clay happened upon a two-room Folk Victorian in Austin that had been salvaged by a demolition subcontractor, the tiny home’s character (original decorative moldings, shiplap walls, and old-growth pine floors, for starters) overshadowed the fact that the early-1900s house had seen much better days. Convinced of its potential, the Duckworths bought the hall-and-parlor-style structure, had it moved to their ranch in Burnet, and began the painstaking process of transforming it into a cozy 635-square-foot guesthouse for friends and extended family. “We paid a lot of attention to detail,” says Clay. “We tried to make it feel like when you step into this place, you’re stepping back in time.”
See how they achieved the amazing transformation...
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