Minden, LA. Blogger Sara McDaniel is the quintessential girl next door—a brilliant combination of soft and strong with a side of Southern sass and spunk! Born and raised in Springhill, she would often visit Minden and remembered the quaint north Louisiana town filled with scores of historic homes, all filled with loads of charm and hospitality. Sara left Webster Parish after high school, vowing never to return.

Then, in December of 2014, while visiting with family for the holidays, she drove past a completely broken down, dilapidated 1920s cottage on the edge of downtown—overtaken by red tip photinias, oak trees, azaleas, daffodils, and poison ivy—abandoned for nearly a decade.

Barely visible behind an overgrown tangle of trees, bushes, and vines—the worn and weathered porch gave way to a maze of tiny rooms piled floor-to-ceiling with years of discarded belongings, long-forgotten papers, and covered furniture. But even the caved ceilings, rotting wood, and animals in the attic didn’t deter Sara—as she envisioned only the beauty the 1926 cottage once was and could become again.

 “I was unequivocally smitten,” Sara wrote on her website Simply Southern Cottage, which documented her restoration of the home. “I felt the draw and knew it was supposed to be my home. But it was in bad shape. It was rotten on the outside, the roof was bad, and the ceiling was caving in.” 

Unfortunately, it was not for sale.

For the next two years she tried convincing the owners, whose family had owned the property for over 90 years, to sell it. The process proved extremely challenging, even for Sara, a woman of great faith. But her “pleasant persistence” as she describes it, paid off, and she finally purchased the cottage in September 2016.

Upon buying the property, Sara began a full, “down to the studs” restoration. She put on a tin roof, and installed new plumbing, electrical, insulation and HVAC. Three layers of wallpaper, cheesecloth and paneling were torn out, revealing 90+ year-old shiplap. All the existing light fixtures were restored and reused.

“It was very important to me to reclaim and repurpose as much of the original house as I could while adding modern convenience,” Sara says. She removed walls on the first floor to open it up and make the kitchen larger and turned the open attic into a functional living space for guests. “I repurposed as many of the original details and architecture as possible,” she admits. “Every interior door of the cottage is original. The fireplace mantel was relocated to a more functional location. I added a big, ole southern back porch.” 

As the layers of filth, dirt and clutter were peeled away, unique architectural details were discovered, as well an interesting piece of history. As the original hardwood floors were being removed to be refinished, Sara found a document titled “The Autobiography of Belle Howard Mayfield” hidden in the floorboards. The autobiography details happy and painful memories of Mayfield’s childhood, her marriage, and the birth of her children. The details of which Sara published to her website. 

Other bits of history are made use of within the house. The kitchen island is made from reclaimed wood, locker baskets from Springhill High School are used above her mud bench and her greenhouse is made from the original windows of the house.

To help with the project, Sara was generous in using local talent and supporting locals who work on old houses and crediting them for their work, such as J-Dog Junk Removal of Minden, Red River Remodelers of Shreveport, and Ali’s Creations of Caster, to make her home the special place it is.

Sara said she never felt overwhelmed as she took on the project, and she encourages anyone in the market for a new home to consider taking on similar undertakings. “Do it. Don’t hesitate,” she says, “There are so many houses that are just sitting vacant. Don’t be afraid. It is so rewarding to bring something back to life and houses aren’t built like this anymore.”

Step inside to see this beautiful cottage with lots of charm, both inside and out. Every room offers a bit of a surprise—delivering interesting decor that engages everyone who sets foot in the space. And while Sara brought in a little bit of a funky flair, there’s also a lot of nostalgia worth pointing out.

Go with the Flow

From the front porch to the direct, unobstructed passageways between living areas, the almost 2,400-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 2-and-a-half-bath home is designed to make moving around as smooth as possible. Sara thought through every detail, down to the back porch bed-swing—one of her favorite places to relax. “It’s attractive and quaint,” she explains. “I wanted it to have a cozy warmth, to feel like it hugs you when you are there.”

Take Design Cues from the Landscape

If there was ever a porch that begged for views, it’s this one. “When people are here, I want them to soak in the beauty all around them,” Sara says. “The setting is amazing, and the landscape plays off that. I get asked a lot, “Why the yellow door?” Simply put, I wanted a bright, cheery, colorful, and inviting exterior. This yellow door exudes joy and positivity and anyone who sees it, just has to smile.”

The landscape, too, is welcoming with ‘Dwarf Burford’ hollies and trailing vinca along the front porch, complimented by crape myrtles, dwarf gardenias, and liriope on the ends. A pale blue on the beaded-board porch ceiling stems from Southern folklore that the hue repels everything from ghosts to insects. Sara brings dinner guests out on the porch here to relax with dessert and coffee.

Fine-Tune the Details

“Lighting gives the home a little bit of edge,” Sara says. “I just took a few more risks—doing things differently than one might have and it really set the tone for the rest of the house.” Sara considers the windmill-inspired ceiling fan a worthwhile splurge as the statement piece for the master bedroom, a tranquil retreat thanks to her use of minimal color and warm wood tones against a white backdrop.

Don’t Be Afraid to Break with Trends

“I wanted to do something other than a typical island,” says Sara, who took inspiration from the cottage’s light hardwood floors when she settled on the revamped kitchen’s slightly more contemporary island. Shreveport Salvage built and stained the top a honey-blond hue that complements the floors. Light walls, casement windows, and a flat ceiling strike just the right balance and keep the space bright.

A spot to grow plants in the winter and enjoy the backyard in the summer, the new greenhouse is composed of the cottage’s original windows and is home to a wicker settee Sara found on the roadside. The master bath is a testament to the union of beauty and practicality: waterproof laminate planks provide the look of wood; the ladder towel rack was another roadside find; and the vintage-look chandelier is an Amazon purchase.

Embrace That Old-Home Soul

A deft mix of accessories and vintage furniture placed throughout lends the home an immediate sense of both history and personality. A pair of folding wood seats along one wall of the library was salvaged from a Michigan theater. Sara cleverly surrounded an oversize quote artwork with open books. “I used a lot of textural pieces to give the layered, lived-in feel—as well as to give the room some dimension.”

Lean Into the Lifestyle

The kitchen remodel entailed a new farmhouse sink with an old look, white cabinets topped with quartz countertops, and a trio of windows to usher in daylight and cooling breezes. In the upper-level bath, an antique vanity Sara found in a junk shop proved to be a perfect fit under the eaves and atop blue-and-white cement floor tiles that bring a punch of pretty pattern and color to the space. 

Add a Touch of Whimsy

Throughout the house, Sara’s passion for combining family pieces with thrift store finds creates an air of welcoming, collected charm. Sara’s mother found the bench, knowing it would fit perfectly beneath this window beside the kitchen, and a friend made the pillows. Faux herbs wrapped in brown paper tied with twine bring simplicity and everlasting color to the kitchen windowsill.

“I love shopping garage sales the most because of the bargains,” she says. “But I’m very intentional. It’s not a huge investment and gives so much character. I feel like these spaces should be memorable. I want to keep my life—and surroundings—simple.”

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Turaeza Lopez 

The Baker’s Path 

BY SCOTT ANDERSON

Baking is many things to Turaeza Lopez. Baking is a science. “Baking takes components to make it arise to what it’s supposed to be. If it lacks one of those components, it won’t be the product you wanted. But it’s a fun science, and it’s not complex.”

Baking is art. “I like to compare it to being a painter,” she said. “I am not a painter. But they can visualize something, and they can paint it. I can paint a taste in a product without knowing if it’s going to taste good or not. It’s kind of like when you paint a picture. You just know.”

“Baking is a lot different than cooking,” she said. “I am a great chef, but my passion is in baking.”

Lopez fondly recalls baking oatmeal cookies as a girl growing up in California. But she wasn’t so sure the kitchen was where she wanted to be when she chose the United States Air Force as part of her life’s path.

“When I joined the military and I found out I was going to be a chef, I put my head down on the desk and I cried,” she said. “I didn’t join the military to work at Denny’s. In the end, God showed me where I was supposed to be.” She served more than 20 years in the military.

While overseas, Lopez discovered another pursuit outside the kitchen. “I was stationed in Germany and was going through a personal trauma,” she said. “I wanted something to focus on. One of my old friends was in the fitness industry. She had started competing. She said, ‘Tess, you should really do this.’ So Tess began to compete. It was during that part of her journey she learned something more about herself.

“I like goals. If I want something, I want it. But at the end of it, once I accomplish it, I don’t carry on with it. If I put a goal out there, the goal was the great thing about it for me.” She stopped competing, but she discovered a new passion — creating a cupcake that was balanced for carbs, fats and proteins but still tasted like a cupcake.

“I was literally at the gym pushing cupcakes in people’s faces and saying, ‘Try this. Does this taste like a cupcake?’ I was trying to create something that tasted like the traditional thing,” she said. But when that path proved rocky, a revelation led her to a new fork in her road.

“In trying to sell to the body-building community, even though I knew and trusted my product, I wasn’t able to sell the trust,” she said. “I sat there and said, ‘Why am I selling to less than 1 percent of this nation when I should be selling to the 99.9 percent of this nation that just wants to have a healthy dessert that tastes like the real thing?’” She launched Prep Cakes to serve those who were struggling to meet their health and weight-loss goals.

“People rely a lot on diets,” Lopez said. “I can support that. Some people need that strict thing to follow. The problem is it’s not a lifestyle. Prep Cakes is a lifestyle. It allows you to have your cake and eat it too. You can pick and choose.”

The concept took off. So much so that many of the people who enjoyed her healthy take on traditional sweet treats encouraged her to take another big step in 2018. “I had a lot of customers who said I should audition for ‘Shark Tank,’ she said. “Because my customers wanted me to, I did.” She traveled to Dallas for the audition. It was a long, arduous nine-hour day, she recalled. About 48 hours later, she came upon another fork in her road when she got an email saying she had been accepted to go on the show. “I thought and prayed about it, and I knew in my heart the time wasn’t right,” she said. “That wasn’t where I was supposed to be. So, I declined the offer.”

She knew she had more to learn. “People jump into business without understanding business,” she said. “Because you have a great idea and concept, or even a skill, doesn’t mean you know you can run a business. God will put you in positions to lead, to understand the financials, to build your team.” One of those positions Lopez was put in was director of the incubator kitchen at Cohab in downtown Shreveport. She also launched the MS Kick kitchen with Southern University. She spent about three years with those two projects, helping others launch their food businesses.

“The time in Cohab definitely helped,” she said. “Going in there and turning that back into an incubator kitchen.” That’s also when she met Jim Malsch, who became a mentor to her in her business. “Usually when you meet people who are coming with a business idea, you can tell pretty quick if they’ve got it or not,” Malsch said. “Tess definitely had the attitude and passion. She has incredible drive. She just needed a little guidance and the confidence.”

In both cases she knew it was time for her path to veer again. “I had to leave Cohab because at that point I was consuming space when I was beyond it. That wasn’t fair for new entrepreneurs. I left MS Kick because I realized I was focusing on so many other people’s businesses and not my own. I felt in my heart that God kept my business afloat even though I wasn’t in it. When I came back, it flourished. That was a sign to me. I put my heart and soul into my business, and it’s been great.”

While the business has flourished, Lopez refuses to rest on her laurels. She is putting her marketing background to work on rebranding her “guiltless desserts.” “I don’t like the word ‘guiltless.’ Just because you have diabetes doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you,” she said. “Guiltless is a negative. I don’t like that. It’s ‘food that fits your lifestyle.’

“Ultimately, I want to be a household name for ‘you can have your cake and eat it too.’ It doesn’t have to be bad. I have wholesalers ask, ‘Do you make guilty cakes?’ Why do I need to? If my stuff tastes like the real thing, why do you need the sugar in it. It’s a rewiring of the brain that desserts don’t have to be a bad thing.”

When Lopez retired from the military at Barksdale Air Force base, she didn’t just make Shreveport and Bossier City her customer base. She made it her home, where she has raised her two children. “I am a realist,” she said. “Money comes and money goes. I don’t worry about that stuff. My greatest success is my children—them finding their success would be my greatest success.”

She is also a proud Shreveport resident who actively campaigns against things like blight in the Highland neighborhood. “I believe in this community,” she said. “I am not going to sit by and watch our community in turmoil.”

Lopez has found community, even among the city’s bakeries, and she knows she isn’t walking this journey alone. “Our bakery community is family-centric,” Lopez said. “There is no competing. I love that. I can go to Lilah’s, and they give me boxes. The Lowders brought me flowers when I opened. Julie Anne’s recommends people to my bakery when they have an allergy. That’s how close we all are.”

Scott Anderson is a freelance writer with more than 20 years’ experience in journalism. He enjoys discovering and sharing people’s stories.

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RULES TO GROW BY ! 

BY MARK WILSON

Springtime brings about the start of a new year in the plant world, with plants coming out of dormancy and budding out. The question always is “When is spring really here?”

There are many ways to say when the spring season has started, from Punxsutawney Phil seeing or not seeing his shadow, to the Spring Equinox, to the Farmer’s Almanac, or when the pecan trees break their dormancy. All could be used, but for north Louisiana we can safely assume April 15th or Tax Day. By then, it is safe to say that the chances of a freeze are low enough to start planting and fertilizing.

This brings us to three rules to keep in mind when getting your garden ready:

RULE ONE

Gardening comes back to three things: Fertility, Light, and Water.

So where to start? The most logical answer is to start from the ground up, in this case with the soil.

RULE TWO

Never guess, get a soil test.

To grow the best plants possible, a soil test should be run. Soil sample kits can be picked up at the Master Gardener office at the Red River Research Station at 262 Research Station Road in Bossier or at many of the local plant nurseries. These boxes have step-bystep instructions on how to take and submit samples for analysis. Results will be sent back with a tailor-made work up of what the sampled areas need to grow the best plants possible. Most of the landscape plants and vegetables are looking for a fertile soil with a pH of 5.5-6.5. If soil pH changes need to be made, the soil test results will state how much sulfur (to lower pH) or lime (to raise pH) needs to be added to get the desired pH.

Once the pH is at the optimum level, the soil’s fertility comes next. While plants may make their own food, they get their water and nutrients from the soil. The soil sample results will tell what is needed and in what amounts. Sometimes a simple balanced fertilizer is needed such as an 8-8-8 or 13-13-13. More often than not, soils will not need all three macro-nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (N-P-K ). So fertilizers such as Urea (40-0-0), Triple superphosphate (0-46-0) or Potash (0-0-60) will be called for. These fertilizers will allow for the application of what is needed without adding what is not needed. If done in containers, a sample slow-release balanced fertilizer is ideal.

Now that fertility needs have been determined, it’s time to place it out for the plants to use. For lawns, April 15th is a great day to fertilize. This is late enough that the grass should be fully out of dormancy and actively growing.

An important fact is that a healthy lawn has less weeds. If a lawn is healthy and mowed at the correct height, there will be less weeds. Follow these guidelines for the best mowing heights:

¾” to 1.5” for Bermuda grass; 1” to 2” for Zoysia grass; 1” to 2” for Centipede grass; and 2” to 3” for St. Augustine grass. For more information on the best way to fertilize and take care of lawns, see “Louisiana Lawns Best Management Practices” Pub. 2940 at lsuagcenter.com.

RULE THREE

Right plant, right place, right time.

For those who are more interested in the landscape rather than the lawn, this is the time to look at what plant materials are still alive and coming back and what needs to be replaced.

Season selections should be made based on what will grow this season and what is growing now. Avoid planting full grown plants that will not make it much further into the season.

Choosing plants with similar needs, such as water requirements or light requirements, will make things easier overall. A way to remember this is plant ‘Like with Like.’ Plants should also be planted to avoid “instant” landscape caused by planting too many plants in a small area. Instead, space plants based on mature height and spread.

For more information on planting annual or perineal color see “Bedding Plants for Louisiana Landscapes” Pub. 2747 at lsuagcenter.com or call the Ag Center office at 318.408.0984.

Mark Wilson is the Master Gardener Coordinator for Northwest Louisiana.

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