Design Request

Jan. 15, 2013
Tara,

  Are you up to a serious challenge? We have moved back to Mobley, where our lecture practice is because of changes in the firm and how much travel we had been doing every day. We need a simpler, less complicated life and more time to enjoy it.

  We have purchased a Craftsman bungalow from the twenties that had serious issues. We have now taken care of most of the serious infrastructure issues and taken it back to the beginning from an unfortunate 60s remodel.

  I refer to it as Boo Radley’s house, from To Kill a Mockingbird. An elderly gentleman, James Wilde, went to GA Tech in the 30s, had a breakdown and never left the house again. He was much loved by his family who looked after him until he passed away several years ago. When we bought the house his mama’s fur coat was still across the chair, his daddy was a General in WW1 & 2 and his uniform was still upstairs.

His family was very reluctant to sell it but since I am a distant cousin they finally relented rather than have it fall in which would have probably happened within a year or two.

  Outside also has serious issues. James swept the yard every day so there is not a grain of top soil, the last known particle was sighted in the 50’s. He was also obsessed with water encroaching on the house and dug major ditches everywhere. We have an acre, but our backyard is a 25 acre pecan orchard. Our neighbor is a funeral home. We have a fence between us and I have planted Confederate Jasmine to separate us from the grieving families.

  There was a garage behind which we have taken the sides off of for a back porch. We have a wonderful front porch and now having become charter members of the Dull Dogs Society, one of our favorite activities is watching the neighbor’s 20 something cats cross the street for meal times.

  We are having to pay a bucket of money to sell the Milledgeville house, but I would rather do that than lose Charles because of the stress we have been under. This means we have a very limited budget to work with but I believe a good plan is the most important thing and we can do it in stages with us doing most of the work. I know we are going to have to plow in tons of compost for anything to grow.

My 1^st priority would be the front. I see a cottage garden with picket fence to  give it enclosure and garden rooms. Our daughter, Bliss, may be getting married in the next year and I would love to have a garden reception in front yard, Bliss may have other ideas. Our house is in town and in walking distance to church and square. Next would be a Koi pond near the back outdoor living space and possibly a potager. I am afraid we are probably looking at serious grading issues.

I could not find any old invoices and could not remember fees etc. Could you please give me a ball park price idea so we know how to proceed.

  I love your blog and it starts my day every day.

Talk to you soon,  Penny

April 19, 2013

Tara,

  I will be sending you pictures of our nonexistent garden. There are no Garden Views. Most of the main rooms overlook an asphalt paving lot of a funeral home next door. The front looks out to a wide boulevard ending in the Veterans’ Memorial Park, very small park mostly granite memorials. Our main room also looks out to an empty home that a friend has purchased but has been unable to restore when the bank was shut down and she lost all of her stock. The side of the house with the bedrooms and study do have possibilities.

At this point we have put up a 6 foot fence between us and the funeral home on which I planted Confederate Jasmine which I pray over daily to grow to provide a barrier between us and the grieving families. We have also put up plantation shutters on the lower parts of wonderful windows to give us privacy. The kitchen will do for now, however at some point in the future I would like to reconfigure the arrangement with windows more like the original overlooking the back instead of the funeral home. I tore out a nasty bath to reopen a wide central hall. We have also torn off the sides of a pitiful garage to make an outdoor room. The main inhabitants of this are our ancient babies, Cossette and Arthur and Hal the cat. Looking down the hall is a terrible view of Charles’s grill which needs a new placement but I am not sure where.

 We have taken down a dreadful chain link fence that cut off most of the back and was the invisible fence line. This weekend we are installing  a fence along both sides of the property but leaving the back open. We are putting a picket fence across the side of the house at the part of the house where the porch begins and a gate for the driveway. Arthur and Cossette are so old and senile they have been wandering through the invisible fence and ending up in the street. Bob, the Corgi, has been so traumatized by not understanding the invisible boundaries he won’t leave the house so it needs to go. We have a wonderful 35 acre pecan orchard behind our house that they can play in but it is overgrown at this point.

My thoughts are to do another Koi Pond near the back outdoor room. Brother was nice enough to have already dug a ditch or depression that has possibilities. I think the only hope for most of the back is some grading.

One of the best parts of the house is the old fashioned front porch where we spend a lot of time. I have been thinking of a picket fence with a cottage garden feel on both sides with boxwoods, other shrubs anchoring it. The house is really a focal point for the veterans park looking down the Blvd. There could easily be a separate garden room on the other part of the front yard, with a gate leading from the front and another to the back, perhaps with the gargoyle head on a plinth and a small pool. There is a natural transition with some wonderful 100 year old camellias and sasanquas. I have been trying for months to get 2 old camellias moved that block the front of the house to this line and hopefully that will happen this weekend. When I was talking about this to someone they showed me a picture in an Bob Piaf book that I believe was his home that was very close to this. I will try to find the book. It is really sad that this is not on the other side of the house with the main rooms.

  Can’t wait to see you next month!  Penny

.

Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

.

I leave next month for this project.  They hired me to spiff up a shady back corner at their previous home.  Somehow the Muse decided a Conservatory was the exact spiffy answer.  Southern Living has it featured this month.

.

Top pic Windsor Smith.  Bottom pic Paris Through My Lens.

.

Client notes were copied with names/locations changed.  

.

L-O-V-E MY J-O-B