AT HOME IN A SCHOOLHOUSE: FAMILY TURNS OLD OAK GROVE SCHOOL INTO SPECIAL KIND OF RESIDENCE

JACKSON, Mo. -- When Cary Winchester told his wife, Melinda, he'd bought a washing machine, she got mad. They already had a perfectly good washing machine.

Then Cary showed Melinda the 150-year-old wooden contraption designed for washing clothes manually. This washing machine she loved.

Cary and Melinda Winchester have an ebullient love of old things and a willingness to take on daunting challenges. That must be why they bought Oak Grove School, a former one-room schoolhouse they have turned into a home for themselves and sons Jerrick, 12, Tyler, 8, and Colten, 5 months; a chocolate Lab named Cody and cats named Jack and Annie.

Newly married in 1998, the Winchesters came upon the school while shopping for a place to live that had a garage, an office for her and a shop for Cary.

"I remember thinking, I really like this building. What can we do with it?," Melinda says.

Some imagination was required.

When the Winchesters bought the schoolhouse, the main building had sat vacant for 15 years. The brick building was structurally sound but needed a well and septic system. Most of the windows had been shot out. "There were snakes everywhere," Melinda says.

"People thought we were crazy."

Money was another obstacle.

"Neither one of us had a dime when we got this place," Cary says. The previous owner financed the $58,000 purchase.

Melinda cooked their meals on a propane camp stove. They went to her parents' house for showers. Cary, a safety consultant for the state of Missouri, taught himself how to do electrical and plumbing work.

The walls were covered with lead paint that had to be sanded and scraped off. The roof had to be replaced. They lived in the school for six months before putting in a ceiling.

Originally they were going to frame in the main room but decided to keep their new house looking as much like a schoolhouse as possible. Aside from the slate blackboards and the lockers, none of the school furnishings was left in the building. Many of the Winchesters' neighbors attended Oak Grove School. They remembered maps on the walls and pictures of presidents.

Founded in 1897

Rural schools proliferated in Cape Girardeau County at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. There were 107 at one time.

Oak Grove School sits on nearly two green acres at the intersection of county roads 316 and 318 near Jackson. The original school was founded in 1897 about one-fourth mile away but was replaced and moved when it burned around 1920. The school was sold as a result of consolidation in 1954. Since then there have been two other owners.

Dr. Steven Hoffman, a professor of history who teaches in the historic preservation program at Southeast Missouri State University, says the Winchesters faced a challenging situation in rehabilitating the building because a shop attached to it by a previous owner was completely incompatible. "They have done a nice job of preserving as much of that original material and providing a transition space from the old to the new," he said.

Hoffman was a valuable source of information about historic rehabilitation, the Winchesters say, but they followed a basic rule: "You keep its historic integrity yet bring it into a functional building," Cary said.

The main room is their living room and dining room. It is a home, not a museum. The television is stored in an antique armoire.

Their kitchen formerly was the school library. They furnished it with antique cupboards. They cook on a transition stove, a type manufactured between 1915 and 1920 which burns both wood and gas. Cary has begun restoring old kitchen stoves.

The addition houses the Winchesters' bedroom, the master bathroom and a hall. Her office is in the addition basement. She operates the Service Master franchise in Jackson which serves commercial customers.

They have converted the open concrete school basement into two bedrooms for the boys, a TV room and a laundry. They found graffiti from the building's former life in the basement.

Outhouse still standing

The original outhouse still stands in the back. Also out back is a log cabin Cary is rehabilitating to use as guest lodging. He found the cabin in Rolla. "As a kid, I always dreamed of having a log cabin," he says.

They will build a lean-to addition to the cabin that will be plumbed.

The Winchesters are proud that they've never borrowed money to pay for the rehabilitation, which so far has cost $30,000. "We save it up and do it," Melinda says.

Except for living three years without a dishwasher, Melinda says the rehabilitation has all been fun.

She doesn't know when the fun will stop. "I don't think it will ever be done," she says.

The boys like life in a schoolhouse with a few exceptions. Jerrick is not fond of the chalkboard because that's where his mother writes jobs for him to do.

Tyler doesn't like the presidents. "The eyes follow you around the room," he says.

Sigma Pi Kappa, the historic preservation honor society at Southeast, presented the Winchesters with its annual award for historic preservation earlier this spring. Since beginning the rehabilitation of the school, Melinda has become a part-time student in the historic preservation program at Southeast.

Her project for a class she plans to take next spring is to write a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. She has a nominee in mind.