At home: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world in this South County home – STLtoday.com

His family finished out the school year in Jeff City, which gave him four months to work on renovations. Nearly all his time outside of a demanding day job as a news editor was spent working on home repairs. Within the first year, they had refloored 2,300 square feet, gutted the kitchen, added a wall on the main level and redid two of the four bathrooms. The others have been renovated since.

With more and more paintings accumulating it made sense to give over an entire basement wall from baseboard to ceiling to what the Francks now regard as a single art installation.

Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com

Theyve taught themselves how to do fairly complex home repairs from trial and error, YouTube videos and by asking friends from church. Their children get roped into the home improvement project mostly out of necessity for an extra set of hands. When they were replacing the sheetrock on the ceiling of their kitchen, they recruited two of their children to help hold it up. The kids climbed the ladders with pillows tied to their heads, so the sheetrock could rest there while Matt drilled it into place.

They were in 4th and 7th grade at the time.

Once he ran out of projects around the house theres only so many coats of paint you can put on a room, Matt discovered a new hobby, Christine said.

About five years ago, a damaged reproduction print of an 18th century maiden caught his eye at a thrift shop. He altered it by wrapping a tentacle around her neck.

From that humble start, he joined the growing ranks of thrift store painting artists in pioneering the kitschy art form. He searches for dated paintings at thrift stores and estate sales and adds a Franck flourish a gigantic Cyclops eye, a literal beehive hairdo, a series of seven tombstones outside a rustic cottage that resembles a dystopian version of Disneys Snow White, with a nod to the #MeToo movement. The headstones, one for each dwarf, are labeled Creepy, Horny and Weinstein, among others, with Snow White walking away with a shovel.

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At home: It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world in this South County home - STLtoday.com