The Maple Forest Cottage

Response to Daily Prompt: Obsessed

As usual, I was in Home Depot with my husband and absolutely could not find him. This happens quite repeatedly. He becomes obsessed with the nails or hammers for the nails or the worst…obsessed with some sort of pipe fittings. The boredom overcame me and I wandered aimlessly towards the kitchen area.

I really love refrigerators and Home Depot has a LOT of refrigerators. Like the couples on Fixer Upper…I only look at stainless. I am a refrigerator snob and I blame it on HGTV. However, this was not the beginning of my most intense life interfering obsession. Not even a stainless refrigerator with Sonic ice could cause this obsession.

A picture on the cover of a magazine was the major catalyst for this particularly serious obsession. Right there in the magazine section at Home Depot, I saw my future…

THE MAPLE FOREST COTTAGE.

The blue-green roof, the gables, the expanse of large windows, the porch, the absolute charm of the Maple Forest Cottage was too much to fully comprehend. Beautiful. This was a storybook house fit for a wealthy Little Red Riding Hood or perhaps her grandmother. I grabbed up that magazine like a child at an Easter egg hunt who has spotted the golden egg. I bought the Better Homes and Gardens “Special Interest Publication” almost immediately. I found the area of Home Depot with the umbrella tables, sat down, and stared at my house on the cover of my magazine.

I spent so much time at the umbrella table that my husband had to find me. As he approached, he said “I told you that we really don’t need another umbrella table!”. I answered…”Are you kidding? What we need is this house!!”. He looked down at the magazine and just said:

“WEIRD HOUSE!”

I imagine that he didn’t appreciate Hansel and Gretel’s house either. You just need vision for these things. I have been working on his vision since that moment. At first, I kept the magazine in a basket next to his chair. If he put a magazine on top, I moved the Maple Forest Cottage magazine to the top again. This went on for several years, but the pages inside the magazine started turning a bit yellow. I put the magazine in a very safe place in my desk.

Fortunately,  an architect named Sarah Susanka had written a book titled The Not So Big House… this wonderful book includes the Maple Forest Cottage and other unique homes. The designer for the Maple Forest Cottage is Michaela Mahady. Some of her other designs are also architectural wonders…at least, to me! Of course, I bought the The Not So Big House  and placed the book on an end table at our farm. Sometimes, I move it to the coffee table. The book is still there…in a place of honor. My husband has yet to mention anything about my obsession with the magazine, book, or the house. Better to leave the subject alone, I guess.

When a person is obsessed, one cannot leave the subject alone. Since we are getting close to living at our farm, we have been talking about building a house on our land…a hill not too far away from the older farmhouse would be a good place. I personally have been talking about this for years. The Maple Forest Cottage is really too big, but the architect has a smaller version. Of course, it also looks like it is out of a wonderful nursery rhyme. Like I originally said…beautiful.

I have not caved in yet, but I did find a “not so weird” house plan that I like. Our daughter even thinks the new plan is “pretty”. I am not really looking for just “pretty”. I guess I am looking for “weird”.

I have been planning and obsessing and looking at the Maple Forest Cottage for 20 years. The magazine came out in the spring of 1996. I have decided that I will enlarge a picture of the house and have it matted and framed. It will be the first picture I hang in the not yet decided upon new house. I don’t easily forget. Obsessed!

Original Maple Forest Cottage Magazine

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