An Alabama family comes together
to hand-build a home and connect with
each other and their region’s history
in the process.
IN WEDOWEE, ALABAMA, Guy and Kay Baker live in a cozy cottage they built with their three sons using almost entirely salvaged materials collected from all over their county. Under the guidance of Guy, a lifelong professional builder, the family spent about five years on the project, lovingly and painstakingly building the intimate space using centuries-old materials. The family so loves their handbuilt home, initially planned as a vacation cottage, that they ended up moving in full-time, and every day Kay and Guy enjoy the personal connection they have with every detail of the 1,100-square-foot space.
In 2001, Guy was overwhelmed at work, and Kay was working on her bachelor’s degree in psychology. The couple’s three young sons were getting increasingly busy with school and personal lives. When Guy’s mother unexpectedly fell ill and passed away, Guy became acutely aware of the sensation that life was passing him by. He felt driven to make good on a longtime dream of building a getaway in the woods for himself and his family.
Kay and Guy had owned the land on which they planned to build — formerly owned by Guy’s grandfather — for years, but they’d never gotten around to starting the project. Eager to reconnect with his past and the things he values most in life, Guy was inspired to get moving on the project after his mother’s death: “It was something I had always wanted to do, but I’d always put it off. Things just got in the way — work, school, the boys. We were just making excuses for never doing it. But my mother had gotten sick in 2001 and passed away, and I think that was the reason I went ahead and quit making excuses and just found the time to do it.”
For Guy, his family was building more than a home; they were building a place for calm and family togetherness, a place to escape the hectic world. “The biggest reason for doing it was that my workload had gotten astronomical. I had no down time, and with the boys at the age they were, we just needed some peace and serenity,” he says.
The Bakers’ 1,100- square-foot cabin is made with 85 percent reclaimed materials the family collected from all over Randolph County, Alabama.
Building Reclaimed
Guy had long had a fascination with the array of antique building materials he saw while working on tear-down buildings in the area. He was impressed with the materials’ good quality and durability, even after they had withstood the elements for hundreds of years. He saw the antiques he’d collected as heirlooms of a bygone era that valued craftsmanship over speed. “I was always and still am fascinated with older structures and older materials. It amazed me that I could work on houses that were 150 years old, and the damages to these homes were minute because of the materials and the quality of the studs and the lumber,” he says. “A year later, you work on a home that’s only 20 years old, and you saw all this termite and water damage.”
For years, Guy had been collecting items — bits of the region’s architectural history — gathered from projects in the area. Though he hadn’t been sure at the time what he would do with them, he knew those great old things were too wonderful to throw away. When it came time to start construction on his family cabin, Guy realized he had probably collected nearly enough reclaimed materials to build the whole cabin. He knew the unique materials would give his home a one-of-a-kind feel. “You couldn’t purchase the boards in this home nowadays,” Guy says. “Even if you tried to duplicate it, you couldn’t. They’re all one-of-a-kind. Most of the boards were hand-hewn with a chop-axe, and they were in excellent condition. That was fascinating to me: to be able to take something that had been out in the elements for hundreds of years and it was still good quality.
Guy and Kay estimate they spent $20 on the kitchen; hinges and doorknobs were the only things they paid for. Kay laid the wood-block countertops herself.
” Having spent 20 years building in Randolph County, Guy had more than his collection of antiques to call upon when he started building his own home. He also had a vast knowledge of all the area’s best sources of reclaimed and antique building materials. “All these materials were readily available. They were everywhere,” he says. People in the area who were tearing down old structures often didn’t have another destination for them, so Guy took them off their hands. “Being in the construction industry, I saw it everywhere — say we were tearing down an old barn with great old wood. If you ask them if you can have it, nine out of ten people say, ‘Sure!’”
Guy’s collection of building supplies and his knowledge of how many additional resources were available in the area helped convince Guy and Kay to build the home in the first place. The free materials made building their home a low-cost endeavor. “After being in this business for years, I knew I could build what I wanted at a very minimal cost, and we did,” Guy says. He and Kay were determined to avoid taking on debt to build their dream home. Over time, finding free supplies became a game to Guy. “It came to the point that you didn’t want to spend anything,” he says. “Anytime you needed something, you knew it was out there, and you could find it. It almost became a challenge to not spend any money and be able to do this.”
An old Indian grindstone the family found on the property serves as decor in the outdoor kitchen supply building.
Guy searched far and wide to find the best materials to use in his home, then used creativity, artistry and hard work to incorporate them into his home.
He used entirely antique window panes from an 1800s church his company worked to deconstruct. People said the church was the oldest in the county, and Guy spent hundreds of hours reframing the antique panes with reclaimed wood. He estimates creating new window frames from reclaimed wood and fitting the panes took him about 60 hours per window — and there are 12 windows in the house. He created a gigantic bathtub by lining a cattle trough with fiberglass. Guy estimates he spent $20 on the kitchen — doorknobs and hinges were the only thing he paid for. The outdoor stone fireplace is made of stones collected on the property. Old road signs and American Indian grindstones found on the property act as decor.
Though safety required that some building materials such as plumbing and wiring be new, overall the project cost virtually nothing. “Other than the wiring and the plumbing and things like that, we didn’t spend any money,” Guy says. He was able to hunt down just about everything they needed from the many old buildings in their rural area. And though saving money was part of the motivation, the family was also keen on using reclaimed materials because they liked incorporating their region’s history into their dream home. “In this part of the country, farming was the main industry, so barns are everywhere. They’re dilapidated, but there’s a lot of good lumber in those things,” Guy says. “It was partially monetary and part just being fascinated with the idea that you could take something someone built 100 years ago, take it apart and create your own dream.”
Building the home together brought the Baker family closer and instilled a huge sense of confidence and can-do spirit in the Baker sons. Left to right: Jeffery, Adam, Kay, Guy and Kyle.
The Ultimate Family Project
As Guy collected materials (he says he used something from every town in Randolph County), the Baker family started spending their evenings and weekends building. From roofing and tiling to laying flooring, the family members took on every task. The boys, Jeffery, Kyle and Adam, who were 15, 14 and 12 when the project started, were assigned specific jobs, such as constructing the outdoor fireplace from rocks found all over the property.
Youngest son Adam says he touched every one of the thousands of rocks used in the outdoor fireplace, foundation and dry creek beds three times — once when he found a stone, once when he moved it to the house and once when he laid it in its final destination. Kay tiled the kitchen floor and countertops with “tiles” made of barn wood Guy cut into small slices. She then coated each one with polyurethane for a shiny effect. “The wood was from barns and floors,” Kay says. “Guy took it and sliced it like a loaf of bread. They were different sizes. Then he told me how to pattern them and lay them out as tiles. We did that on the countertop and the floor. It’s a little crooked, but it’s still beautiful,” she says.
Guy and Kay viewed building their home as an important way to teach their sons the value of hard work and to show them what a huge feat they could accomplish working together as a family. Working hands-on together provided the family a way to connect outside the normal day-to-day grind, and it taught Kay and Guy’s sons the importance of dedication.
Though the teens may have grumbled at times as they made their way through the project, today all three Baker sons realize the invaluable lessons they learned from building the home, and they know their home is worth all the hard work. Jeffery and Kyle also gained a foundation for their careers through the project — both are professional builders working for Guy today. Middle son Kyle says that, though the project was challenging, he gained enthusiasm as the home came together: “At first, I hated it. That’s the last thing you want to do with all your free time when you’re 16 and 17 years old. But later on, all the pieces of the puzzle came together. When it got closer to the finished product, you saw how neat it was and you wanted to do more to it.” He remembers how the project empowered him, and it’s still a source of pride: “I remember rocking the inside of the fireplace. I pretty much did that by myself. I’d never done anything by myself. I’d probably never been trusted to, but I did that. I’m proud of it.” Kyle says the project helped him determine that he wanted to be a professional builder, but also that he could do anything he set his mind to: “It showed me that I was able and capable of doing some of this stuff, and now I’m getting paid for it. It opens your mind to all the things you can actually do if you just get down and try it.”
Adam says working with his parents helped him develop a stronger, more mature relationship with them:
“There is a certain amount of time you have to spend with a person before you truly know them. Until you’ve seen your parents react to frustration in a very human way, you can’t say for sure what type of person they are.” Watching as their parents demonstrated grace under pressure showed the Baker sons the best way to react to difficult challenges, Adam says: “I had the opportunity to see how both of my parents deal with stress, and it built respect between us. They did not have to tell me to be moral or honest; they showed me by example. They did not throw a fit every time a rock refused to stay cemented to the wall. We saw what was happening and learned from it.”
Collecting stones from all over the property and laying the outdoor fireplace with them were some of the Baker sons’ tasks.
Along with the value of accomplishing goals, Adam admits the project also taught him the value of failure, and of perseverance: “If I succeed without making any mistakes, I fail to learn something new. What is an accomplishment if we’ve learned nothing from it?” And, though he learned a lot about his parents and brothers, working through the challenging project also helped Adam learn about himself: “Everyone has character flaws. My family loves me enough to point mine out. They’ve helped me become a better person by showing me things about myself I couldn’t see on my own.” Adam says he grew up while building the project from ages 12 to 17 and that it helped him navigate the sometimes difficult road to adulthood: “Every one of us changed while building that place, but we grew together, not apart. It was therapy to get our minds back on track after the pitfalls of everyday life. Building that house helped me cope with the death of my grandmother and two close friends. I became a man. I grew closer to my father. I got to know my brothers. I learned to appreciate my mother. She is my link to the past and what keeps me moving forward.” Adam also built the foundation of what he hopes is his future career — he’s applied to architecture school at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.
Kay agrees that everyone in her family grew through their work on the project. Building the home helped her sons become the responsible, capable adults they are today, she feels: “This project just instilled something inside of them. All three of the boys have such a huge sense of independence, and it seems to have come from this project — working like they did, realizing they could make anything happen. It made us really close.” Guy sees the home as a testament to his family’s dedication: “I love that when my sons come in this house, it’s a reminder of what hard work and dedication can do. At the time, they weren’t crazy about doing it like I was. But now the boys can remember doing each task, and it becomes really personal. It’s more than a house, when you know that you or your children had your hands in the whole project.”
Kay loves how every part of the home has its own family memories — not just the memories of the times they’ve spent in it over the years, but of actually laying the bricks together. The entire family recalls fondly constructing the large fireplace that extends up through the family room and heats the entire home, a task that was hilariously wrought with difficulty. Kay remembers: “Oh, the fireplace, I just laugh when I look at it and think about it. We built that on one of those days when it was freezing cold, and probably 10 degrees colder inside than outside. All the boys were here, and Guy was trying to get all the bricks up there. Our middle son was on the ladder, and he was mad because it was really difficult, and he was holding the mortar. Every time he’d try to put it up on the bricks, he’d sling some of it on my head. Of course, I’d get mad, but we all ended up laughing. It’s a fun memory.”
The project made the family so close that sometimes they didn’t have to talk at all, Adam says: “I remember days where no one said a word because we had had an argument, and the thing that broke the silence was what we had built that day. We were so close and knew each other so well that we could build anything together and speaking was an option. You don’t learn that much about someone just by having dinner together one night a week.”
Home Sweet Home
When their sons were young children, the Bakers lived in a number of homes. Guy was continuously buying and renovating homes, and the family would often relocate into his least finished project while he fixed it up. Living in a number of places, Kay says her sons never developed a strong sense of connection to a place until this home: “Of the 15 homes my sons have lived in in this world, this is probably the only place my sons really think of as home.” The home is more than a house to the Baker family. It’s an heirloom and a repository of family memories. “The idea’s been batted around about selling it,” Kay admits. “We’ll say, ‘If someone pulled up in this driveway and offered however much money, would we sell it?’ The boys look at us and just say, ‘No.’ This is the one place that means a lot to all of us. It’s something they can hold onto and have.”
Oldest son Jeffery confirms that, though they’ve lived in many houses, the little cabin will always be home to them: “I don’t think it would matter where any of us lived, that would always be home. We would always want to go back there for Christmases and all that.” All three sons realize their connection is so strong because they put so much work into it. Adam concurs: “My family’s house feels so much like home to me because I had a hand in it. The average homeowner is two degrees away from their home. They work a job to earn money that pays for labor and material cost. Often they will help with the design of the house, but they will never know the feeling I got from clearing nails from old boards knowing they would be given life again. I worked on my family’s home with my own hands. Money isn’t what’s needed when you do something like this — the main thing you spend is time with people you love.”
Though they’ve lived in many houses, the Baker family says this house is the only one that truly feels like home because they put so much love and effort into it.
Guy’s Four Requirements for a Handbuilt Home
Guy says having patience is the top requirement of taking on a project like this: “I learned at a young age that patience is the key to anything. Patience and knowledge: If you have those two things, you can pretty much do anything. The biggest key is realizing you’re not going to do it overnight.” Before starting the project, Guy accepted that it was going to take a long time, but that he would get through it by focusing on what he and his family had accomplished rather than what was still left to do. He says concentrating on achieving one small goal at a time helped keep the project manageable. Going slow also gave the family the opportunity to see their progress as they went along, and to really contemplate how they wanted to build every detail. Guy instilled the importance of patience in his sons, teaching them to enjoy the process as much as the finished product. Adam says: “I wanted to complete a task by doing everything at once. My father taught me to do things one at a time so I could visually see my accomplishments. Otherwise I would get frustrated and want to give up. Now, I have learned to enjoy using my hands and building something. It gives me time to think.”
Guy built the bedframe out of reclaimed timbers, modelling it after an expensive one Kay saw in a magazine.
Knowledge is the second requirement on Guy’s list, but he feels that anyone willing to investigate and learn could figure out nearly every skill needed to build a home. Even as a builder with 20 years of experience, he says sometimes he had to learn a new skill along the way: “We all get to the point where there’s something we don’t quite understand, and when we get to that point, what do we do? We ask questions or we get online until we find the answer, then we move forward. It would be the same thing for someone who didn’t have the knowledge or background. It would take them longer, but if that’s what they want to do, they can do it.”
Guy made the bathtub by lining a cattle trough with fiberglass; the whole project cost $90.
Though Guy feels anyone could learn the skills to take on a project like this, that doesn’t mean it didn’t take a whole lot of his third requirement: hard work.In the depths of the project, Kay recalls wondering if the project would ever end: “I was overwhelmed like it would never be over. It was such a long process. It took Guy every minute he had. He would work all day and come to the cabin for two or three hours in the afternoon.” She laughs, “From a wife’s point of view, I didn’t think it would ever end.”
The family’s biggest investment into the project was the time they put into it. “It’s time-consuming. Anytime you go with recycled materials, and you’re doing it on weekends and after hours, it becomes very time-consuming,” Guy admits. Though using reclaimed building materials helped reduce the financial expense of the project, it increased the time investment of nearly every task. “It’s not the simple task of calling the materials store and having stuff delivered,” Guy says. “You’re actually bringing the materials from somewhere else. With wood planks, you’re denailing them and using them again. That becomes a task.” But Guy feels it was important to him not to cut corners on the place he planned to live in for the rest of his life. He knew if he did, he’d always look at the rushed job and wonder “why didn’t I just spend the extra 50 hours to make that right?” The family says all the added effort required to prepare the reclaimed materials was worth it for the one-of-a-kind home it created. “Whether you have experience or no experience, if you do something like this, it’s one of a kind,” Guy says. “Even I could not duplicate this cabin we live in because the materials were all unique. It’s a one-of-a-kind thing.”
The Baker home is filled with salvaged wood, windows and decor from the region’s architectural history Guy collected over the years. The windows throughout the home were salvaged from one of the oldest churches in the area; Guy painstakingly reframed each one by hand.
A Customized Home
One of the best parts of building your own home is the ability it gives you to incorporate your family’s desires into its design. The Baker family loves being outdoors, and with Alabama’s nearly nine months of warm weather every year, outdoor living is an important part of the family’s life. They incorporated an outdoor kitchen with an outdoor storage supply shed that houses a sink and cooking tools. Guy explains that the outdoor fireplace, on a porch tucked into the surrounding woods, is one of his favorite parts of the home: “We wanted it to feel like the house was part of the living area, and incorporated it with the outdoor kitchen.” Even in winter, Guy says he and Kay make good use of their outdoor spaces. He loves sitting next to the outdoor fireplace with a hot cup of coffee on one of the region’s few snowy winter days.
The Bakers love spending time outdoors, and designed their home for comfortable, year-round outdoor living.
Cabin and Community
Building the house with items collected from all over the region connects their home with its location, its history and their friends in the area, Kay says:
“Different areas of the house are connected with particular areas of the county or even the particular barn it came from.” Specific parts of the home recall not just the family’s history, but also the region’s. “For example, this sign I’m looking at came from a particular person’s house who was the land commissioner for years and years. We have tons of reminders,” she says. The family also incorporated many antiques and mementos of their own family life. A childhood wagon was converted to a coffee table. A blue cabinet inherited from Kay’s grandmother graces the cabin’s living space, and a ladder built by Kay’s grandfather leads to a sleeping loft.
Adam loves how they converted community trash piles into a beautiful home: “Some of these boards came from piles of rubble that I drove by every day. Not only did we build the house we live in, but we also cleaned up the town we live in.” The family also saved some of the beautiful architectural elements in their region that would have otherwise been lost. “It’s like living in New York and one day you’re able to put the Empire State Building in your living room,” Adam says. “Our house became part of our town, not just another addition.”
Build Small
If patience, knowledge, effort and time were the biggest requirements of the Baker family as they built their home, being reasonably sized was the biggest requirement in their home’s design. Building small helped keep the project manageable, and Guy and Kay both enjoy living in the cozy space. “I planned to build small because I knew the smaller it was, the easier and quicker I could do it,” Guy explains. “I’m glad we did, because the boys are gone now, and it’s just Kay and me. We enjoy the small quarters. It’s easy to maintain, the power bills are lower, it costs less money. Everything is manageable.”
Guy and Kay have always seen the value of living in small quarters. Most of the homes they’ve lived in have been small, and Kay says it suits her and her family: “We’ve always laughed over the years. If you were mad at someone, you were just mad, and you better work it out because there’s nowhere to run. The idea of going into a room and slamming the door and no one coming in just wasn’t in the cards. It’s always been a blessing.”
Adam says he learned the value of simple living by seeing the excess in the design of area homes over the years. He feels sorry for people who can’t recognize the value of a home that’s built just for living, not for ornament. “Being that my father was in the construction business all of my life, I’ve witnessed people arranging houses with designs that include rooms that serve absolutely no function other than looking nice. It’s such a shame how those people must live in those houses. There is so much wasted space. If we could only use less space and be more efficient in the design of our homes, it would be half the battle of excess waste.”
The Bakers kept the main home small by incorporating several outdoor areas, including an outdoor dining room serviced by this utility shed.
In some ways, the home became a museum of the historical items Guy had collected over the years, thanks to his fascination with antique architectural salvage. Kay sees the home almost as a living museum, where Guy could finally display all of his pieces of the area’s building history. “Over the years, whenever Guy worked somewhere and people found out he likes old stuff, they’d just bring him stuff,” she says. “He collected things over the years, and it all has lots of memories. It’s all in one place now. Anywhere we look or where we’re sitting, there’s a particular memory.”
In the community, the Baker cabin has become something of a celebrity. The home attracts visitors from far and wide, all of whom are blown away by the simple home’s soothing feeling. “I had some people come by this morning,” Kay relates. “The first thing I told the ladies was, ‘There are no female amenities here.’ There’s no dishwasher, for example. It’s a slow, easy lifestyle. We have a wonderful life, but it doesn’t really revolve around money.” Guy and the boys’ clients frequently visit their home. The clients often become so intrigued by the home, they bring other visitors by to see it, as well. One of Guy’s clients brought over his sister from Chicago and his mother from Jordan. “People from all over come by. They take a liking to our little home. They just come up in the driveway at will,” she says.
Guy and the boys bring the experience they gained building their home to all of their new projects. Folks all around the area have heard of the unique cabin, and they ask for parts of its character to be incorporated into their own homes. Mostly, Kay believes clients hope to capture the feeling of calm the cabin conveys, explaining, “It has a very homey feel, and a lot of simplicity. I think that’s part of it, but it’s also just the calmness. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s just peaceful. You’re not trying to make everything perfect. It is what it is and everybody’s comfortable. I guess it’s contagious when people come in and see and feel that.”
The Baker’s handbuilt paradise has gotten a lot of attention in their community, and it’s driven a good amount of work for Guy’s construction business. “We remodeled an old store in downtown Roanoke,” Guys says. “Downtown Roanoke is probably 150 years old, and the owner of this building was an attorney who sought me out because of my own home. We used a bunch of old tin because she loved that look.” He’s happy that the techniques he demonstrated in his own home have carried over into his professional life. And he loves the aspect of historical discovery that comes along with building with used materials: “Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to not only build new construction, but also to do this stuff we really enjoy. This is fun. You discover and find out so much. One of the simple little things we found when we were using this old lumber was a musket ball from the Civil War era. Someone shot a musket ball into the board or the tree. When we were cutting an old board, we found it.”
Building their own home taught the boys that building a home is totally accessible. Jeffery and Kyle have not only chosen to make building their profession, they got started on their own homes at a young age. Guy owns a few rental properties (self-employed, he considers them his retirement fund), and the boys each took one for their own home. “Jeffery, my oldest, had taken a rental house we had built 15 years ago, which is a few hundred yards through the woods from this cabin. At age 18, he remodeled it and put his own thoughts and ideas into it. It’s a beautiful home. It’s a small cabin. He’s been there probably six years now and loves it,” Guy says. “Kyle lives in another rental in Roanoke, Alabama. Jeffery and Kyle are both full-time employees working for me. Their interest in building is really high.” All three boys are interested in building their own homes. “I would certainly love for me and my two brothers to build a cabin in the woods somewhere,” Adam says. “I wouldn’t even care if it was mine to live in or not. I’d just love to do another project like that with my brothers. After our project, I had the idea to use broken bathroom tiles and create a mosaic of a Coca-Cola emblem as a countertop. That would be something I’d like to do in my own home one day.” Building their family home has instilled all of Guy and Kay’s sons with the building bug. “They’ve all got that desire,” Guy says. “They’ve realized how easily you can do it, for a minimal cost.”
Along with connecting with each other and their region, the hand built home also allowed the Bakers to connect with the natural beauty that surrounds them. Their lot, which includes forest and several streams, was valuable to the family for its natural beauty, so they cleared minimal trees to make space for the cabin. The outdoor porches are surrounded by trees. Wildlife wanders through the area. Guy says the connection with nature helps enhance his home’s paradise feel. He also honored the trees he did clear by using them in his home’s design. Indoor railings are made of twisted pine from trees on the site. Guy designed a bed for the master bedroom — an upstairs sleeping loft — out of local wood, modeled after an expensive bed Kay had admired in a magazine. Sometimes the materials they used led to imperfections, but they make Guy and Kay love their home even more. For example, Guy used wood from trees on the property to make the boards for the floor of the bedroom loft. The fresh wood was still moist when Guy laid it, so he butted them very close together, but they still shrank more than he expected. The resulting cracks in the floor are one of Kay’s favorite elements of the home, she admits: “They lend the bedroom a hayloft feel that reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.”