Green Acres is the place for me.
Farm livin’ is the life for me.
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide.
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.
New York is where I’d rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.
Craig grew up on a farm in Stroud, Oklahoma. Spending a lot of time with his grandparents, John and Mary Lou Cooper (their names even sound country), he had a full-time farm hand job by the time he was 5 years old (or so he claims). When he was a toddler, he spent afternoons under the dining room table creating miniature farms with toy tractors and toilet paper rolls for hay bales. As a teenager, hours outside of school were spent on a combine or some other piece of farm equipment. He’s always been a hard worker and to him a firm handshake from a farm-raised good ole boy is worth far more than any letter-head inked contract. Work-ethic is 7 days a week, sun up to well-after sun down and a trait to be well valued.
While I didn’t grow up in a big metropolis, as a little girl I always dreamed of living in a big city. One of my favorite classes in high school was Career Development. Mrs. Cunningham taught me how to write a resume, dress for success (“never wear a pink suit – they’ll think you’re a weak girl”) and set 10 new goals each month. My first “real” job was in the children’s department at the local JC Penney’s department store. Looking back on it, I think my boss and co-workers were making fun of me by calling me “Miss Corporate Jenny” because I wore a smart business suit everyday to sell onsies and binkies behind a cash register. My idea of being a success was wearing high heels, an up-do and sitting at a big desk with my name on the office door. After college, I announced to my family that I was moving to San Francisco. Without friends or family, a job or a place to live in California I trekked in a 1970s U-haul across the dessert aiming for the big city and giving my mom a heart attack.
In public, Craig and I must often look like quite an unmatched pair. His closet is full of brand-new, tags- still-on button-down, crisp collar shirts I’ve bought him that he’ll never wear. Every morning, he instinctively grabs the next hole-worn, grease-stained green John Deere T-shirt in the line. I shop at Ann Taylor and own 6 pairs of pointy black heeled shoes. We get weird looks when we meet new clients a lot of the time.
Craig wore overalls to our wedding. I only “allowed” it under a new suit jacket for a few photos with our grandfathers. Both grandfathers, then in their late 80s wore their overalls too. Looking back through the professional photos, the ones of the three farm boys are hands down my favorite.
When I first introduced my parents to Craig while we were dating, my mom told me, “You’re weird, he’s weird, but you’re both weird together.” We get that. We make a good team. I’m relationships and branding. He’s the brain and the sweat equity. God certainly has a sense of humor when he creates a lid for every pot. But He does it. Even if that lid is greasy cast iron and the pot is shiny stainless steel.
When Craig started building homes, we automatically wanted to create a fun juxtaposition of our personalities with a Modern Farmhouse style and noticed that no other builders in the Oklahoma City metro area were doing it at the time. With huge wrap-around front porches, corrugated steel roofs and of course ship-lap siding, Craig gets to relive his comfortable farmhome feel. Pair this with sleek, metallic light fixtures, clean white subway-tiled kitchens and a mid-century minimalist décor and you have a serene and simplified feel. And the best thing is, the market is really seeming to love the new Modern Farmhouse style too. It’s literally all over HGTV. We’ve had a ton of clients searching for this look and for a little land to call their own but haven’t been able to find anyone in Edmond who doesn’t build cookie-cutter traditional style homes. We’re excited to see that our little niche is really growing in popularity.
My favorite pieces in any home Craig builds are the pieces that tell a story. He once shipped in a 10’x8’ extremely heavy carriage barn door flaking with layers and layers of paint. This door came off a 1908 barn in Massachusetts and cost more to ship it than to actually buy. It even had the original leaded diamond glass in-tact. Craig had the door split in half and repainted barn-red. He hung it on rails and made two true barn style doors for a client’s dining room. Those doors are priceless. They have character and simply make the r oom. It’s the touches like that that make OklaHome-built Modern Farmhouse style homes special.
For more information about OklaHome Homebuilders and to see a gallery of photos of their Modern Farmhouse style homes, go to www.OklaHome.com or visit their Facebook and Instagram page.