Kelly Becker
Section Editor

When opportunity knocked, Dan and Jill Peters answered the door. But opportunity came with some surprising baggage. The opportunity was a really sweet deal on some raw land in the Animas Valley. It was a beautiful, just under 32-acre property with some river frontage, and the Peterses planned to build a modest but comfortable home for themselves and their two teen-age boys, Joe and Matt. They had lived in a very small space and they were eager to build something that suited their needs.

The time came to begin planning what to build and when. They soon learned that with their particular mortgage company the size of their new home would be tied in value to the value of the land. (This is quite often the case in La Plata County.) Oh, oh. What did that mean? It meant that improvements to the land had to equal a certain percentage of the value of the land. Even sweet deals can mean a lot of money if the construction will take the total bill up and out of reach.

So, what did they do? They built it themselves and for much less than the average per-square-foot construction would have been. Hold on to your hat! They built the 3,000-square-foot living space for $26 per square foot and, if you include the garage and lower level of another 3,000 square feet, it brings the cost per square foot down to $13. Can’t be done? Well, it was and here’s how.
Number one, construction skills presented no problem to the couple, owing to their having been in construction. Number two, everyone in the family still had strong enough backs to do the physically demanding work. Number three, terrific imagination and the ability to take a dollar and make the eagle scream did the trick. Dan and Jill Peters are both welders and metal presents no problem to them whatsoever, so needless to say metal was used creatively, cheaply and abundantly for not only the roof and ceilings, but also for clever sculpted decorating pieces.

Original art by Jill and her father adorn much of the space. (And it’s good stuff!) Eye-catching paintings, energized uses of colors, varied fabrics and textures and an aura of vitality charge-up visitors to the home. Fabulously fun and sometimes funky objects cause a double-take on a stroll through the home. There is a sense of, well, joyful abandon.
Jill said over and over, “It’s just a big box. It’s nothing more than a rectangle. There’s nothing fancy about it.” Perhaps that is what holds some of its charm. It’s rather like a brand new home that a young couple with a family would choose except that it is really big and colorful and tweaked. What might have been nothing more than a big box with no personality, this home has cleverly been completed to be a terrific living space filled with whimsy, positive energy and optimism.

Such delights as curly-tined forks created by Dan act as drawer pulls for a fabulously cheap but attractive garage-sale find of a chest in the kitchen. Jill added legs and casters, and bolted a metal, raised work surface, painted the piece and voilà, a movable kitchen island. Tableware sits casually in canisters on the countertop. The Habitat for Humanity store filled the need for inexpensive appliances that work great in the space. Total cost of the kitchen? Jill was pleased to answer: $800.

More fun things include “stools” that have old western-style saddles on them as seats. Buddhas and plenty of other Oriental accents call to visitors to look at them. Room after room has great examples of how creativity can pull elements together to make a look work. If you want to change it, change it, Jill advises. One definitely gets the message loud and clear that perfection is unnecessary as long as the experience is pleasing to the homeowner. Another way to say it might be: the home smacks of personality.

Approximately 100 to 150 yards from the house, down towards the Animas River, sits a quaint “sleeping” gazebo complete with a swinging bed constructed by Dan. Jill says that gazebo is one of her favorite rooms and it is delightfully decorated in blues and whites. She says that during the summer months the couple sleeps out three to four times a week (even during bear season). Located In that same area is a “playhouse” (a camper trailer) where she and her friends yak with some “girl talk.”

The one bit of professional help that the Peterses indulged themselves was hiring someone to do the drywall work. The rest, from building the forms for the concrete foundation to pouring the concrete and banging nails, was done completely by Dan and Jill and their sons, Joe and Matt. That’s a pretty impressive undertaking when one considers the amount of work involved and that it was completed in just seven months.

If some of you have ever considered taking on a project but have given up the idea, you might want to reconsider. Take it from the Peters family; life is an adventure and the rewards of a self-done project can be huge.