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| The Mail Order House | | Learn more about catalog kit homes that shaped the residential history of America. |  The Mail Order Home Forum |
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| Sears Kit Home |
| This Sears Lakecrest home was delivered to Pennsylvania in 1931 in 30,000 pieces. Now, years later, Laura Bohn has renovated the cottage with a fresh, unconventional approach. |
| By Beaty Coleman |
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| photography: Roger Davies |
The three-bedroom cottage is "remarkably in tune after all these years," says Laura. During the renovation, she and husband Richard enjoyed discovering numbers on each pieceof lumber. "It was prefab in the early stages," she says.
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Laura bohn seems to have played, and won, a game of finders keepers.
Nearly everything inside her Ottsville, Pennsylvania, cottage has a secondhand story. Laura discovered the floor tiles that cover most of the tiny bungalow when she spotted a country road sign that read "Tile: 99 cents." She pulled over and bought every piece. When a rustic log chair fell out of favor with a friend, Laura called dibs and put it front and center in her living room. Likewise, the oversize (and very stylish) fixture above the dining table was another friend's castoff. "It was bright orange," Laura says. "I covered it with silver paint." A pair of sleek stainless barstools just appeared on the curb, and there she was—as luck would have it—to pick them up. "I find the most outrageous things," she says with a laugh. "I don't go through trash, but if it's glaring at me from the side of the street, I'll pick it up."
photography: Roger Davies
In the living room, a rustic log chair and woven rattan sofa (here, corgi Amy's perch) share space with modern furnishings like the wooden coffee table and metal floor lamps. |
photography: Roger Davies
Everybody who comes to the cottage has to draw on the wall covered with chalkboard paint. |
An interior and architectural designer by trade, Laura admits she'd probably get some flack from her clients for this come-what-may approach, but with her personal space, anything's game. "The projects I do for myself are the most fun," she says. "I take all the chances in the world." For example, she painted a chalkboard wall in her dining room, installed the bath sink on top of a rolling cart, and created a woodsy backdrop in the master bedroom with a wall mural found in a hunting catalog. "I could look at a tractor magazine and find something I like," says Laura, who bought the mural panels and hung them up as wallpaper. "It was tough getting the deer noses and antlers to line up," she recalls, "but it was incredibly inexpensive." 
photography: Roger Davies
Tiles for the backsplash were a fortuitous find in a funky tile warehouse located in route from the city to the country. Laura bought the portrait at an auction; it's unfinished, "which is what I like about it," she says. |
photography: Roger Davies
Magenta painted cabinets, white laminate countertops and a mix of other colors in the kitchen created a cacophony of colors in the kitchen before the renovation. |
photography: Roger Davies
Master bedroom before. |
photography: Roger Davies
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