Colonial Changeover
Take it from these Florida homeowners, who swapped outdated frills for Early American authenticity, you, too, can transform any style of home into a prim paradise with a little creative vision and some elbow grease.
Creative Floridians make the most of their manufactured home by adding distinctive features that impart the Early American ambience they adore.
When Janda and Wade Fussell
first settled into their manufactured home on 5 peaceful acres of family farmland in Lithia, Florida, Janda was a fan of the 1990s country style that was popular at the time. “You know—peaches, blues, lace,” she recalls. However, after inheriting some primitive family furnishings, her interests began to shift. “I started incorporating the primitive pieces in the decor, and I’m really into history,” she explains. “So I really started going after Colonial about five years ago. Now, the house looks nothing like it did to start with!”
Not inclined to do things by half measures, Janda and Wade threw their considerable talents—he is a woodworker and she is an artist—into transforming their home. “We’ve redone everything,” she says. “The only things we haven’t changed are the ceilings and the stone fireplace. Everything we’ve done has been to bring a more primitive Colonial look to the house.”
New flooring, additional fireplaces, a tavern room with a caged bar, and period-appropriate furnishings and accessories are among the alterations. Janda, who learned to sew from her mother, stitched many of the window treatments and even fashioned her own pillows from coverlet fabric she found online. “If you use plain fabric on the back,” she advises, “you can make a lot of pillows!”
Drawing on her degree in commercial art, Janda also repainted the interior of the home with historic hues, patinas and stencils. A single wooden candle sconce in the tavern room provided inspiration for the color of the home’s trim and bedroom accent walls. “I took that down and had the paint matched,” Janda recalls. “Now, that’s the color of the trim in the entire house.”
She even, unexpectedly, found herself painting the master bedroom floor after water from Hurricane Irma damaged it in 2017. “It ruined the wall, floor and subfloor,” she says. “Wade needed something fast, so he grabbed wallboard paneling that looked like red brick, and within two hours, he installed it.” Add: However, Janda was not a fan of the red brick floor and announced to Wade that she was going to whitewash it. “He told me I was crazy, and I said, ‘Watch me,’ ” she laughs. Once her project was done, the couple liked the resulting finish so much that the “temporary” solution became a permanent one.
Family members also contributed to the home’s makeover. For example, Janda’s father constructed the tavern room mantel and hutch, and her sister, who owns a woodworking business, made a custom noodle board to cover the kitchen stovetop.
Janda and Wade’s dedication to transforming the home even spilled over into their evenings out. When they realized that the authentic antique redware they admired was out of their price range, they decided DIY was the answer. The couple searched online for images of rare patterns and then headed over to the local paint-your-own pottery shop to recreate them. “We did an eightpiece place setting over an eight-week period,” Janda says. “It was our weekly date night!”
Whether they’re painting pottery, building faux fireplaces or decking out their backyard with seasonal country goods, Janda and Wade have found that teamwork is the key to transporting their manufactured home back in time and are delighted by their new old-fashioned Colonial surroundings.