2 min read- Country music star Kacey Musgraves is fresh off her Coachella run and preparing to release her seventh studio album.
- Titled Middle of Nowhere, the upcoming album was heavily inspired by her childhood home in Golden, Texas, a notoriously small town.
- In preparation for the album’s launch, Musgraves has partnered with Zillow to create a “listing” for the home, allowing fans to experience the tiny Texas cottage virtually.
“Somewhere in the middle of nowhere,” might be a Kacey Musgraves lyric, but it’s also an apt way to describe the songstress’s hometown. The alternative country queen is pulling us back into orbit, right to the bluegrass meadows of Golden, Texas. In anticipation of the release of her seventh studio album, Middle of Nowhere, the country/folk pop singer is opening the doors to her childhood home—virtually.
In collaboration with Zillow, Musgraves is offering fans the opportunity to tour her childhood home in the “middle of nowhere,” synonymous with the album’s title. The tiny two-bedroom, one bathroom, 935 square foot “casita” has been in her family for over a century. Musgraves views the home as a homage to her family’s legacy and a vessel for creative inspiration, but it didn’t always radiate with the kind of feminine energy it holds now.
With just about 300 residents to compete with, the country artist saved the property from being sold outside the family around 2014, following her grandmother’s passing. Her first mark of home ownership? She painted the petite cottage in pastel pink to honor her grandma’s memory.
The singer also put a country chic spin on the entire property, spending ample time restoring the home from the inside out and carefully placing personal touches throughout while preserving the original details that make the house feel like a home. The porch, in particular, harbors a hidden memento of Musgraves’ home state pride. Instead of being clad in the traditional southern haint blue hue, Musgraves had a replica of the Texas state flag painted onto the ceiling.
The fictionalized Zillow listing (the home’s not actually for sale) is riddled with album innuendos and hidden Easter eggs about the upcoming record for fans to find, explore, and indulge in as they wait. The idea for the collaboration came to Musgraves, a self-proclaimed late-night Zillow scroller, as she dwelt on ideas of ideation and imagination, and how those ideas can be transportive.
The home is steeped in classic country charm, with floral wallpaper covering the kitchen backsplash and matching cornflower blue countertops. A vintage-style gas stove sits outside the single bedroom, while a water cooler is tucked into the corner of the room on a makeshift bar. Further tapping into the power of maternal lineage, a wooden-framed photo of a mare and her foal hangs above the sink.
Rustic white tongue-in-groove siding runs throughout the home, paired with walnut-toned floors.
The house was an essential character in Musgraves’ childhood. She wrote her first song there, against the backdrop of rural Texas and its dust-blown roads. Though she hasn’t lived there for going on twenty years, the country locale hasn’t lost an ounce of charm.
“I think it's easy to grow up in a small town and be like, I'm getting out of here,“ Musgraves says. “And then it's been cool to return to it time and time again and find different ways to be inspired by it.”
