MACOMB, Ill. – If ever a house reflected the tastes, passions and dreams of the couple living there, it is the six-room home of Bill and Jo Sanders. The Macomb couple, both retired Western Illinois University art professors, have truly made their home their own, as well as a showplace for artwork produced by them and for them.

While the square home with a flat roof has design elements of a variety of styles, including International and Baroque, the couple said it’s mainly Bauhaus, a 1920s architectural philosophy.

“I’m a Bauhaus who married a Baroque,” Jo said.

The home was designed by Jo in the 1960s after she collected pictures, memories and other ideas about what she’d like in her own house. That design included drawings, a cardboard replica made by Bill, and a trip by Jo, who taught interior design, to an aluminum house in Ohio made by a siding company.

“I kept them all in my mind,” she said. “I drew out a floor plan and then friends kept suggesting things.”

The home was constructed by the late Ron Allen of Macomb, who also built the president’s home at Western Illinois University. He took Jo’s plans and made them work.

“He was a farmer who liked to build unusual things,” Bill said.

The couple broke ground on the home in 1967, the year they married, and it was completed in 1968.

“This house was on the drawing board when we got married,” Bill said. “I designed the cabinets and things like the weird clothes chutes.”

He also helped design some of the spaces in the home that frustrated Jo.

“I couldn’t get the bathroom,” she said of the challenges the home’s design presented. “It was the logic of the illogical when it came to trying to get from one room to the other.”

The home’s open floor plan allows one to see through the house from several directions. The double figure-eight layout features a bright atrium in the center rimmed with windows.

The atrium area includes a fountain and is covered by one of the home’s three skylights, which bring in natural from a multitude of directions. They also help bring a spirit-lifting and warming feeling as tropical plants thrive in the environment.

“We wanted an indoor greenhouse . . . an indoor oasis,” Bill said. “We thought it went well with the fire (from the home’s fireplace), the water in the fountain and the plants.”

Another skylight in the home sits over the bathroom’s sunken tile tub.

A back office area contains an enormous wooden weaving loom still used by Jo, who also taught textile classes at WIU.

Some of the most unusual aspects of the home were added to overcome design and structural challenges.

The ceiling over the home’s living room is lined with colored stripes that match the room’s decor. The stripes extend to the ceiling’s edge and spill over down the walls.

Jo said all but one of the stripes is painted, while a pale olive one is cut from vinyl to cover a flaw in the plaster.

The living room, decorated in rust, brown, orange and gold, exudes a vintage warmth and is highlighted by Jo’s hand-woven and hand-dyed draperies.

A number of walls in the 1,400-square-foot home are covered with her woven tapestries and artwork produced by Bill.

One of his favorite things to do is make art from recycled materials. Many of the large pieces hanging around the house were compiled by him or made from recycled materials, such as used compact discs and plastic paint palettes.