When Cori and Wally bought a dilapidated 1880s farmhouse and began to renovate, a major concern was, according to Wally, "How can we make this look authentic and not like it's pulled out of a corner of Home Depot - and do it inexpensively?" With unfettered creativity and skillful shopping, they have fashioned a stylish yet rustic home full of delightful quirks, from the faucets made of watering cans to the picket fence beside the bathtub.

Cori is a horse trainer and designer of a line of giftware for teens. Wally describes himself as "a computer geek and screenwriter." After living on a houseboat for five years, they bought a 148-acre Ulster County farm that was in foreclosure, sailed to Florida, and drove north with a U-Haul, visiting thrift and antique shops to collect furnishings for their new house. When they arrived, deep in winter, hoping to move right in, they couldn't get the U-Haul up the long, snowbound driveway. The house, of course, needed work, but they figured they'd go one room at a time, starting with a change of wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom. As they took down the old wallpaper, says Wally, "It was like unraveling a sweater." They wound up gutting the entire house, trucking out twelve and a half dumpster loads, and living for fourteen months in a place down the road.

The farmhouse sits amidst rolling fields, some of them fenced in for Cori's four horses. (Future plans include renting the property out for weddings.) From the wraparound porch, a Dutch door leads into the kitchen - the bottom half of the door keeps in two lively little dogs, Nurse Diesel and Dr. Funk. In the center of the kitchen is a round-topped table on wheels, whose origin Wally describes: "At the sawmill, I noticed a huge log that I thought could be hollowed out as a tub. The guy thought I was crazy, but I took it home and carved it with a chainsaw. I cut off one end, which became our butcher-block table." He built a wood frame to rest it on and added wheels. Cori says, "I like being able to rearrange practically everything. This is great. We can roll it over to the dining room table." The bathtub, meanwhile, wouldn't fit through the door, so it is still in the yard and is destined to be an outdoor tub, once the drain hole is drilled.

The kitchen features cabinets with metal handles shaped like twigs, and there are drawer pulls, forks, and goblets to match. Cori bought them at the New York Gift Show, where she got a good deal from a fellow exhibitor. The windowed cabinets were a gift from Cori's mother, but they didn't have the money to put glass in the doors, so they used striped cloth instead. On a sideboard sit several examples of their collection of commemorative glassware, including a glass that reads "Highland High School Senior Prom."

Cori shares a laugh with Edgar Allan Pony.

The kitchen leads into a small bathroom with a potting table, consisting of a counter with a sink on top and a cabinet underneath, a style often found in greenhouses. "We saw one in a thrift shop on our way up from Florida," Cori recalls, "and I said, 'That's the one I want.' Wally took a picture of it and designed this one just like it." Except that this one has a galvanized feed tub for a sink basin and a watering can spout for a faucet. The lamp overhead has a terra cotta flower pot for a lampshade, convenient because there was already a hole in the bottom for the electrical fitting. A piece of flex conduit, usually hidden within walls, provides an adjustable gooseneck housing for the wires.

On the back deck is an outdoor shower with a shower head made from a complete watering can. The outer wall of the shower is a bamboo screen from Ikea. Beyond the deck is a stand of closely planted evergreens, whose dead lower limbs were lopped off to make room for seven hammocks, creating a shady outdoor lounge.