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Although they live in a custom-built home in Palmetto, B.J. and Carol Braden have customized it in many other ways besides construction and design. Their home is utterly unique and fascinating.

Their hobby is collecting steel school lunch boxes that were made between 1950 and 1986. In 1986, they were outlawed in Florida because a group of concerned parents complained that they could be used as weapons.

As you enter the front door of the Braden home, you get your first clue to the contents that reside therein. Stone shelves protrude from a great stone fireplace; there you see lunch boxes, many with matching thermos jugs. A roll-top desk has a top shelf covered with them. A player piano from the early 1900s holds a few. Antique dressers and tables serve as showcases.

In the country kitchen, glass enclosed cabinets are full of them; even the master bathroom has space for them, as do all the bedrooms.

Boxes that have similarities or common denominators are arranged in groups. The garage has not been filled yet, but future plans call for it to be a home for the old dome-shaped workmans' lunch boxes.

"How did we start?" B.J. asked. "You know, we really can't remember. We know it was a little before 1990, and we just can't remember which one was our first. Now we keep detailed records."

"It's a family affair," Carol said. "We enjoy their character, color, excitement and their place in time. They are so neat! Just look at one closely some time and see. We have never sold one. Once we traded two extras for one that we didn't have. The only thing we don't enjoy is dusting them!"

Boxes come from Connecticut, Michigan, out West and all over the country. Sometimes people give them as gifts. Often, matching thermoses are found in different states.

Approximately 475 different boxes were made over the years of their popularity.

"In the house, we display 264 boxes and 156 thermoses. In the attic, we have 233 boxes and 80 thermoses that are doubles or triples of ones we already have," Carol said. "They're good for the `kid in us,' because they came from our era."

One Dukes of Hazzard lunch box even has been signed by Tom Wopat. "That may start a whole new trend in box collections," said B.J., as he showed one that Bill Clinton once held in a photograph that was taken before he became president.

Although lunch boxes comprise the largest collection in this beautiful, unprecedented home, smaller inventories include antique rug beaters, antique two-handled saws and kitchen implements. A glistening, sparkling clean, full-sized, formerly working Esso gas pump has a prominent place in the living room.

"My father used to have an Esso gas station in Pennsylvania when I was growing up," B.J. said.

"Although this was not actually one of his pumps, it is exactly the same."

Move on into the master bedroom and you will see a collection of toys that belonged to Carol when she was a child. Obviously, she has been a collector since birth. All closets are immaculate and open to show lunch boxes on the upper shelves.

"We live in our dream house," B.J. said. "We have 10-foot ceilings and transom windows over the doors throughout the house. A large front porch was a necessity."

"Yes," Carol added, "We wanted the house to be country with old-country artifacts. It had to be a home, not just a house, and you don't have to take your shoes off to come in! We had planned on one year, but it took three years of our lives to build it, and it was all worth it."

The rest of the family consists of two of B.J.'s sons: Boston Justin, 12, and Brooks Jay, 10.

B.J. laughingly refused to reveal what his initials stand for because he's been B.J. since his senior year in high school.

When not collecting, B.J. repairs transformers for Magnetek. Carol teaches "English for Speakers of Other Languages" at Palmetto Elementary School. All four take various lunch boxes to school and work on occasion. The hand-carved, polished wood sign over their front door reads: "Est. 1990 to 1993, To God be the Glory."

Several years ago, B.J. stood, looking at the five oak trees there and said, "To God be the Glory, I'm gonna build a house here someday!"

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