June Home of the Month-All About Vintage
Thomas and Bonnie Crawford enjoy country living at their home in the Estates. They have lived there for the last five years and were honored to accept the June Home of the Month award.
Before Thomas and Bonnie Crawford moved to Ramona, they lived in Paradise in Northern California. “We went from tragedy to triumph,” Thomas said. In 2018, there was a campfire in Paradise that was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. Their home was part of the 10 percent that didn’t burn, although they lost all their antique yard items due to the fire.
They rented an Airbnb for a month in Ramona while deciding if they wanted to move to the town and found the home they are in now. The house was a real fixer-upper and needed a lot of work when they bought it. They painted it, added dormers on top to give it height and did a lot of upgrades on the inside as well as on the outside. The remodeling inside took about two years, and it took about one year to upgrade the outside. They upgraded the front yard in the summer of 2022 and updated the backyard in the fall of 2023.
The backyard was all dirt; it looked like a blank slate. Now, it is concreted and beautifully equipped with a green garden cottage and a red barn shed. The backyard is landscaped with a variety of plants and flowers and decorated with antiques. The couple raves about their landscaper, Gabino Sanchez, who spearheaded the yard transformation. “It was brilliant how he tied it all together,” says Thomas. “We feel really blessed.”
Bonnie is an avid gardener, a member of the Ramona Garden Club, and a former antique dealer. Their home was featured on the Ramona Garden Tour on May 4. The Garden Tour selected four homes and sold the tickets for $25 a ticket; the proceeds went toward scholarships for Ramona High School graduates.
The home overlooks beautiful views of mountains and is very peaceful. The Crawfords are very happy they ended up on Pappas Road. Their son, Wes, his wife, Corey, and 18-month-old son, Henry, also live in SDCE. “It’s a real blessing to live near family,” says Bonnie. Thomas quotes a verse from the bible, “All things work together for good. It took a fire to bring us to Ramona.”
Congratulations to the Crawfords for being awarded Home of the Month for June!
