You’ve probably noticed that Teague’s father, Don, shows up in our photos a lot. He and Teague are a pretty unstoppable team. Usually, they’re working on our place. But as I mentioned in my recent post from Bar Harbor, while I was vacationing Teague was busy putting a new screen room on his parent’s charming little summer cottage. The “Farnsworth Residence”, as they jokingly call it, named after the previous owner who was obviously quite eccentric.
The two of them worked tirelessly for 5 long days, battling to somehow build and merge a level screen room with a very un-level cottage (soon to be jacked and somewhat straightened, but obviously never built with perfection in mind).
The results were fantastic – and especially exciting considering how many bug bites we all got. Now, the mosquitoes will have to look elsewhere for fresh blood.
So without further ado, some photos of the cottage and it’s brand-new porch:
And also, because I love it so much, a close-up photo of Don’s homemade arbor, which he elegantly pulled together from scrap lumber:
On the topic of outdoor living…….. we’ve been toying with the idea of a deck out back – not a monsterous one, just something to have a morning cup of coffee out on and maybe stop some of the dirt from tracking in with us. It will only be a few inches off the ground, and won’t have any type of overhead cover at this point due to budget and time constraints.
The problem is, I can’t seem to picture a deck that will “match” with the house. The ones we see around us are so modern looking. Anyone have any good inspiration for a historic-looking back porch/deck type thing?
Comments, Thoughts, and Feedback
Nice screen porch! I actually kind of like the crooked look of the house -the tilt gives it charm and character.
Also, about your deck, is there any chance that you could scrounge up some old red bricks? A friend of mine with a Victorian house built a deckish looking thing out of used red bricks from a house nearby that was being torn down. His deck is about a foot high, 10×10, and it looks really good. It also matches the style of the house in a way that a modern, wood deck never could. They built two circular areas in the back corners, and planted two Japanese Maples for shade in the summer. It’s a peaceful place to read the paper, but it obviously required a bit of hard, do-ti-yourself labor to build.
Hi, Mindy: You might want to consider a stone or brick patio (ground level) off the back of your house. Might look more period-appropriate than a deck.
Love your website — thanks for sharing!
Hmmm, yes – I should have mentioned – I would LOVE more than anything else to put a brick patio out there. Stone, pavers, and brick are much more my style. The hangup is, we have a sump-pump hooked up back there and need some type of access to it. The deck would allow us to build a trap-door type thing to get to it, should the need arise (which surely it will at some point or another)………….
Maybe we build a faux-brick trap door! :)
Years ago my parents had a modern shaped deck built on the back of their house, which has since been removed for an addition (house was built in 1925). Mom managed to find an old section of wooden porch rail (can’t remember if it was found at an auction or in someone’s garbage pile!) that she added to the deck which gave it a lot of charm — maybe searching for some old pieces like that to tie into whatever you come up with would help.
We love to hear from you, dear readers.