Front Doors
The front of the house is exposed with earth wrapping around each side and up a couple of feet below the windows. We covered all exposed surfaces with stone that was gathered on the property. The walls of the sunken courtyard in back were also covered with rock. We made the front doors with mahogany with a 1″core of white pine. They are coated with several layers of boat builders epoxy and polyurethane. The rocks for the patio came from the creeks, the only place you can find flat rocks.
Atrium Courtyard
A rock stairwell leads down into the atrium. The south facing wall of the sunroom extends 4′ into the atrium and has a slate roof. The courtyard is paved with large flat rocks we fished from the creek. When we moved into the house there was no landscaping. We finished up all the rock work after moving in and built several retaining walls to contain the earth that surrounds the house. Over time we added decks to the front and back. The roof was nothing but weeds for a while. We were concerned about keeping children and visitors from falling off the roof so we tried a couple of things. First we planted blackberries along the front and around the top of the atrium. This worked but soon got out of hand and we ended up clearing all vegetation off the roof. Next we planted wild roses with the same result. We were so busy finishing the inside and our jobs that we put off landscaping for a few years. Once the kids were older and most inside projects were complete we began to get serious about the outside. We replaced the windows with much better double paned windows replaced the vinyl gutters along the front and in the atrium with copper. These were a pet project of mine and I was extremely pleased with how they looked.
Roof Gardens
We have always had a love of plants and being a little older we really enjoyed landscaping the home. I had started collecting bamboo by this time and we planted a grove of giant Robert Young near the roof. Another mistake as it began to spread onto the roof. We eventually dug up all the bamboo and gave it to a friend. The roof was about the only place on the property with lots of sun (and great soil) so we planted our flower gardens there. I got very enthusiastic growing giant elephant ears, bananas, gingers, cannas, and other cold hardy tropicals. Mickey helped with these and planted lots of flowers. The flower beds are still there but we change them up from time to time. With terraced gardens in the front and a water garden in the back we have about reached our limit of what we can maintain.
Our driveway is about 600 feet long, down a steep hill and across a pond then up to the house. It was a dirt and gravel drive and was in really bad shape for many years. We just didn’t have time or money to do anything about it plus we were concerned about finishing it while heavy equipment was going in and out. At some point I managed to get an evening shift at work and we started paving the drive. We would prepare a section with forms and reinforcement over a couple of days and then pour that section. It took quite a while but eventually we paved the entire drive and it was, and still is, one of the most satisfying projects. Just recently (2011) we decided to improve the entrance to the drive. The concrete stops about 6 feet short of the paved road. The county had paved this section with asphalt but over time this had deteriorated and the road had been repaved leaving an ugly, patched asphalt entrance for the drive. This summer we decided to do something about it. We rented a saw and cut a straight edge along the road and cut the end of the concrete drive to make it parallel to the road. Mickey’s dad had a large collection of brick that his dad got from a railroad roundhouse that was demolished back in the early 1900′s. We estimate the brick to be at least 100 years old and it looked great. We used this to fill the 6 foot section at the start of the drive and it turned out great. We did a little landscaping after the brick was down and feel that this was a final touch to all our years of hard work.
Brick Driveway Entrance
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