A Real Barn Raiser
FORWARD TWP — The rural home of Jim and Mary Alice McCosby is one of a kind, both on the inside and out.
The 2,300 square-foot home is situated on a wooded hillside where the McCosbys have lived since building the unique house six years ago.
The rustic appearance of the home's exterior is no accident, as Jim, a retired contractor, tore down three barns to collect the seasoned wood.
The exposed beams on the second floor and loft, the ceiling over the kitchen, the 42-by-32-inch stone fireplace and the siding on the exterior all come from barns on nearby Yellow Creek Road and George Road and in Fenelton.
“I like the rustic appearance of the barn wood,” said the spry 80-year-old.
McCosby and his diminutive wife of 50 years are also fond of collecting antiques and oddities, which grace every surface of the lodgelike house and hang from the walls and ceilings.
While many of the rare and interesting items displayed in the couple's home are collectible, Jim McCosby did not break the bank buying them from antique stores.“To me, it's a shame what gets thrown away in this world,” said McCosby.Most of the things in his home were given to him or swapped for contracting services, while some were garnered at auctions.“Never turn anything down when someone wants to give something to you,” advises McCosby.The ornate buffet in the McCosby dining room, which holds about 50 family photos, was given to McCosby in return for drawing up blueprints for the woman who owned it. An antique, ivory-trimmed spool cabinet in his living room came from a friend who had painted it gray and used it for storing nuts and bolts in his garage.“He said ‘If you find me something else to hold my nuts and bolts, I'll give it to you,'” McCosby recalls of the transaction and subsequent refinishing job several years ago.The posts on the staircase's banister were also a free acquisition, and belie an interesting story. McCosby explained the posts were made from 30-foot lengths of wooden “sucker rods” from a nearby oil well. He said in Butler County's oil heyday, rods used to extract the oil from the ground were made of wood from ash trees.
An acquaintance had acquired a nearby oil well several years ago and planned to pull the sucker rods and replace them with modern piping. When the friend told him he planned to discard the old rods, McCosby asked if he could have them.Another friend brought the 150 20- to 30-foot lengths of wooden pipe to his property, and McCosby boiled it 10 lengths at a time in a custom-made kettle to separate the stubborn, oily residue from the wood. It took six to eight hours of boiling and steaming to free the oil from the ash wood.“After all, it had been in an oil well for 100 years,” McCosby said with a laugh.Mary Alice then scraped the rods, let them dry and sealed them with six coats of varnish. Her husband cut the long rods into lengths that would fit between the staircase's handrail and floor.The open living and dining rooms of the McCosby home could double as a museum, as two wide overhead ledges display every- thing from crocks to antique toys to a sauerkraut cutter.The wall above the sliding glass door in the couple's dining room holds four swords complete with their accompanying scabbards. Jim McCosby said one is a pirate saber and another was used in the Civil War.The living room's walls hold a large plate collection, and three miniature sailing ships about the size of a breadbox grace the mantel above the fireplace.The unique sunroom off the dining room holds much of Mary Alice's collection of miniatures, which grace every windowsill and fill an antique cabinet on the wall. Unusual items in the sunroom include a chicken waterer made of thick glass, and a collection of huge antique light bulbs.The sunroom's floor is made of red brick, and random splotches of polyurethane give the floor the appearance of being wet from a summer rain.
The unfinished basement, which includes a large, fully outfitted kitchen, holds stacks of the antique books Jim has picked up over the years. A Hoosier cabinet, popular in the early 20th century, and an antique hair crimper, which women heated on a coal or wood stove, are placed near a window. A player piano also rests against a wall.McCosby built the house to be energy efficient, but at the same time indulgent, by placing the heat pipes under the living area's floors to keep feet warm in the winter. Heat usually comes from an electric boiler, but a wood-burning furnace is also available. Jim cuts and splits the wood himself.Mary Alice said her fragile décor has not prompted her to keep the couples' grandchildren away. Conversely, she said only one item — a crock accidentally kicked off the loft's edge by a grandson sleeping in a sleeping bag — has ever been broken.“He felt terrible and he kept saying ‘I'm sorry Grandma,'” Mary Alice recalled with a grin.She said the couple now enjoys the company of their 17-month-old great-granddaughter, who looks at the items with interest.“She has never touched anything,” said Mary Alice.Other items gracing the McCosby home include area rugs in the living and dining rooms, some of which are antique, as well as original oil paintings completed by Mary Alice. But she is quick to deflect praise for her artistic skills.“Jim did the pen-and-inks over there.”
Mary Alice has a plan for cleaning the hundreds of knickknacks and the vaulted wooden ceilings. A duster on an extendible pole keeps the cobwebs at bay, and she cleans each item when she changes the displays four times per year to complement the seasons.But the couple says dust is kept at a minimum because of their home's woodsy location far from the dust-producing “hard road.” Jim said he sets up scaffolding every other year or so to clean the huge fan/light hanging from the peak of the vaulted ceiling.Mary Alice, who scurries away periodically when Jim is talking to retrieve an antique ice shaver or pair of antique ice skates to show her visitors, said a tour through the home could last all day because nearly every item has a story behind it.But don't expect her to recall where each item came from.“Jim just brings it home,” she said.
