The Garrett Family Home Page: House & Yard

Our House and Yard

House
This is the Garrett house, built in 1946- the oldest house in our neighborhood. It's not big, but it's nice and its ours! We put in the rock path in the front about 18 years ago.
We are the fifth family to own our house- we moved in on Labor Day 1984.We really miss the big red maple tree that was there in the front yard until several years ago when it died and had to be removed. We still have a huge white pine in the back though, and we planted an oak tree where the red maple used to be. The oak has really prospered during its first five years, and got to about ten feet high, but then it bit the dust. At least we have a beautifully wooded back yard.

This picture of the house shows the new cream and blue trim that we added in July 2005; before that the house trim was gray and white. Also in 2005, we covered the gables and dormers with stucco to match our new room. They were previously covered in old asbestos siding which we do NOT miss seeing!

Also in 2005 we enclosed the side porch (on the right of the picture).

Note: if you'd like to skip straight down to the new 2005 renovations just click here.

When we moved into the house, there were no paths or walks of any kind- just a mud slide from the street or the driveway to the house when it rained!

So some years back we hired local stonemason Steve Hodges to put in fieldstone paths- a straight path from the street to the front door and a curving path down to the driveway. Now they look like they have been there 100 years!

Virginia puts in lots of work on the yard and keeps it looking great. Sometimes other people help her. The cats, in the days when they went outside, were always ready to help.

Virginia's Jungle

A few pictures of Virginia's "summer jungle" which we all enjoy immensely!

The (Relatively) New Stuff
Some pictures of the extensive work we had done in 2004-2005

New Room

To the left is the new room we just added on. For those familiar with our house, you're looking through the old picture window that opened into the back yard.

You'll also notice that the room seems sort of empty, which it pretty much is at this point. Mainly because we're broke!

Dog Door

The dining room table and rug are in there of course, and the saltwater fish tank is now over to the left. Our eventual plans call for an entertainment center on the far end (under the window) and for the dining room table to be moved to the side.

Meanwhile, it feels a lot like eating in baronial splendor at the Biltmore, which is sort of fun.

As you can see on the right, we did not forget the needs of the hounds in all this. (They won't let us anyway). They were slow to learn to use the dog door, but they're in and out of it all the time now.

However, Hedrick (aka Fluffle & Scritch) is convinced that this is HER personal room, and spends a fair amount of time patrolling it and running around the corners.
Slate Floor

The floor - which you see on the left - is natural slate. It's from China, of all places (do we really have a shortage of slate in the US? Doesn't look like it when you drive through the Pigeon River Gorge between Tennessee & North Carolina.)

This means it's much rougher than a synthetic floor, but we find it much more attractive too. Also, slate absorbs heat and makes for a warmer floor than synthetic tile or other natural stones.

It's funny, but this new room has affected the feel of the whole house. It's much more open and there's no cramped feeling anymore. When we have people over, now there's some room to spread out.

The yellow we painted the walls is a bit more intense than we planned, but we've gotten used to it by now!

The Veranda

We enjoy the veranda more than any other part of the new addition. Before we had this our back yard was pretty much unused, except to let the dogs out and take out the compost!

We do use the word "veranda". With 500 square feet - 400 square feet under roof and another 100 square feet outside - the words "porch" and "deck" just don't feel adequate or appropriate.

The deck was built by good friend and ace carpenter John Parker, who did us a superb job. The material is not wood but Lowe's ChoiceDek Plus - no bugs, no splinters, no painting, no warping, no maintenance. Definitely our kind of veranda (especially the no maintenance part). It's worth the extra cost.

Veranda End

We've been able to host large groups of people out here like we never could before (the new room helps a lot too). And when the weather is halfway decent, this is where we live now. (Rain doesn't stop us, just extreme cold, extreme heat, and mosquitoes. And we have breakfast out here pretty much every day, see the dawn together and hear the birds singing. It's great!