Atomic Renovation

We won, we won, we won!!!!!, originally uploaded by Atomic Village.

I have been obsessed (according to my husband) with winning the neighborhood yard decorating contest!! It has been a labor of love and it finally happened. We won!! We were presented the award last Thursday during the Oak Park Garden Club cookie exchange. From what we can find in the minutes, the award is at least 40 years old. I can’t tell you what this means to me. What a great Christmas this is going to be…we win the contest, I have the aluminum tree of my dreams, and we are having a Mad Men themed Christmas Party. Life is GREAT!

Here is my entry to Retro Renovation’s  “Love the House You’re In” contest. The winner will get a collage made with images of their mid-century home! The image will be created by collage artist Mel Kolstad.

I grew up in Biloxi, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast…home of fresh seafood like “Biloxi Bacon” and our pride and joy, the shrimp – so abundant that it got us the title of shrimp capital of the world. By far my favorite thing to do as a child was to spend time at my grandparent’s house, sitting on their pier overlooking the Bay of Biloxi, salty wind in my hair. They lived (and still do) in a quaint little neighborhood tucked neatly behind the local air force base and surrounded by water on 2 sides. I remember as little girl walking down those streets rightfully named Oak Park, taking photos with my cheap little camera of the grand houses some dating back to the 1920s when the neighborhood was first being developed. The azaleas and camellias always blooming so bright, those oak lined streets, and swimming in the bay will forever be etched in my heart and mind.

Fast forward to 2005, my husband and I were making the trek from Ohio to Mississippi where I had been living for the past 5 years. We were on our way to get married in Biloxi. A little hurricane named Katrina would change everything. We spent the Sunday evening we got in town at my grandparent’s home eating red beans & rice with cabbage and corn bread! True Southern delicacies! The following morning we woke to the rising waters, scrambled for to the attic and sat for 5 hours as the beautiful waters I admired as a child swallowed years of memories, family heirlooms, and the life as I had always known it. We got married in spite of it all on the sunniest Monday morning I had seen in ages. The church still stood and so did we.

A year after the storm my husband and I moved back to the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast. While my grandparents were rebuilding their home they had purchased a smaller mid-century modest home at the end of their street. We stayed with them and eventually their house was completed enough that they were able to move back in. That left us with our dream home, all ours! The renovations would have to wait as others around us were rebuilding and my grandfather, a retired construction company owner of 45 years, was helping others. When asked, when is your grandfather going to start on your windows I would remark, “God’s windows come first” as he worked to help the church we had been married in. So, we sat in a home that was haphazardly put back together after itself receiving 4 feet of water.

Eventually our turn came and as you can see from my blog and flickr, we are knee deep in renovating our mid-century modest home. Never a chore, I appreciate everything about our wonderful home and the blessing that we have in our life in spite of everything it has taken for us to get here. I get to live in the most wonderful neighborhood in the world where all of our neighbors have monthly “get togethers” and all our ladies are members of the Oak Park Garden Club. I get to see those oak lined streets, sprayed with flowers every day when I awake. We even have a fox family that moved into our neighborhood after the storm! It really is a treat to live in my house, in Oak Park, and in my beloved Biloxi. I truly love the house I’m in!

Victoria