As many of you know, Maria and I declared bankruptcy last summer, we were swept up in several storms, from divorce to the recession to the collapse of the real estate market. It was painful and shocking to us, but we knew we had to face it squarely. As part of this trouble, we also faced the loss of our farmhouse, as this mortgage was tied to the other mortgage, the first Bedlam Farm, which we could not sell for four years.

Neither we nor anyone else imagined we couldn’t sell Bedlam Farm, even as we kept lowering the price, but the fates did not care what we imagined, they write their own story. For most of last year, we thought we would lose the old farmhouse we bought just three years ago. As it turned out, we were able to re-negotiate our mortgage, we had a bank that actually wanted to work with us, and we are keeping our home.

And we love it. We couldn’t afford to remain on the other farm, but beyond that, we wanted to live in a house we both choose, not one suffused with so much of my own life.

For most of the year, we held our breath. We didn’t dare work on the farmhouse.

I think we were bracing ourselves for having to leave it, and we both love it very much.

I love writing in the old parlor, Maria loves her old Schoolhouse studio, the animals have shelter, pasture and room to roam and graze. They are nearby and easy to observe and care for.

We love old farmhouses, but they are often plain and drab.

Farmers in the era when our home was built – the early 1800’s – did not have money for the expensive pigments that made colorful paints and wallpaper expensive. They used cheaper mixes of whites and reds for their barns. The interior of our home was drab and dark, although it had wonderful woodwork and big rooms with tall ceilings.

We were nearly broke when we moved in, we scraped wallpaper for months and opened up the windows, most of which were frozen and rotted shut. Maria is the artist in our home, the restorer, the restoration wizard, I came from a culture where other people were always hired to work on homes, I never painted or scraped anything before coming to this house.

Adversity can be a gift, it almost always is in one way or another, it forces us to look beyond suffering and pain. There is another side, the road back from bankruptcy will take some time, and is not always smooth. But it is challenging and liberating. Because we could only do work we can do ourselves, Maria stepped forward once we knew we were staying and began re-imagining our home.

Since we reached our agreement with the bank to keep our home and cleared most of our debts, we have begun bringing color and light and style to the farmhouse. I have to say this is almost entirely Maria’s doing, I would not have known how to start, let alone how to execute her dreams. I have done little more than go to the hardware store,  paint a bit and cheer from the sidelines and share the experience.

Our little old ratty bathroom has been transformed, with bright new tiles, colors, fixtures and artwork. The only labor we paid for was bathroom tiles. It is a bright and cheerful room, I call it the Frieda Kahlo bathroom, she is an inspiration for Maria, and her colors are full-blooded and daring. It is fun to take a shower there, bright and warm and cheerful.

The kitchen, built in the Betty Crocker 1950’s, has a new tile floor and is about to be re-painted. Colors are under discussion. We have taken the paper off of the dining room walls and painted it yellow with a blue ceiling, and a mural from Maria still in progress. Last week, Maria painted one wall of the living room salmon pink and today, the other three walls a light green.

The house has been opened up, warmed up, brightened. Florence Walrath, who was well over 100 when she died, could not do much maintenance in her later years, the house had been closed up for years to save money and her energy. It was dark. It is opened up now.

We are rocking the farmhouse, it is a bright and cheerful place.

And ironically, it was the lack of money – the “financial fragility,” as one reader put it – that opened up this creative impulse in us and challenged us to do it ourselves. We didn’t have to wait years for our recovery, we just needed a few cans of paint, some scrapers and rollers. And Maria’s imagination and energy.

Creativity, it seems, is a powerful force.

The truth is, I mostly get in the way if I tried to help too much, she works efficiently and quickly and happily by herself. I respect that and accept it My gifts lie elsewhere. As always,  there are many ways to support the team even if you aren’t on it. I love the bright and somewhat Latin feeling coming to this old farmhouse, an energetic and beautiful mix of the severe and the hot-blooded.

If the bathroom is a Frieda Kahlo bathroom, the house is becoming a Frieda Kahlo house. I hope one day we will have the money to do the more serious work the farmhouse needs – gutter work, new shutters, work on the roof. I believe we will get there, recovery is a process, it takes time. We are managing our money carefully and well, restoring our credit, planning as best we can.

But our bright and open farmhouse – we are scheming to open up the arch between the living and dining rooms – is in many ways the gift of adversity, the child of bankruptcy. We would never had done it this way if had a lot of money. And we love it all the more for this. The house is personal, a reflection of us.

I am blessed to live with a partner who has so much drive, skill courage and energy. Believe me, this would not have happened with me alone. But she does drink from the cup of encouragement, and I can at least offer that.

We all face adversity and challenge. I have learned to see beyond it, to the other side. Nobody ever accomplished anything by whining, self-pity or lament. Life is what you make of it every day, and if you don’t get to suffer defeat, you don’t get to experience the joy of victory.