If you’ve ever wanted to get a front row seat to see the quality of craftsmanship that goes into building a truly unique English cottage-style home, then here’s a great opportunity.
This will be an ongoing blog series until completion of the home itself. I came across this home after the initial bare-bones construction phase but there’s still a lot left to do. I’ll start off the series by giving a little background on how I came about this extraordinary home.
I have a pretty nice drive home everyday. By that, I mean that the shortest path to my home from work takes me through Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in Marietta, GA. It’s a beautiful drive through the park with beautiful homes and properties, here and there, that seem within the park boundaries but are privately held parcels. There are occasional deer sightings, minimal (overhead) power lines and even one property (appropriately named Ten Oaks) with a pond where the owners keep emus, shetland ponies and pygmy goats on land that borders the park. Beautiful land…beautiful properties…magnificent homes.
I drive by this neighborhood-in-the-making that borders the park and I’ve been keeping my eye on these extraordinary homes they’re building. When complete, there will be about 10 homes so it is very exclusive. It’s never been advertised with any kind of signage, or otherwise, and is being “built out” at a snails’ pace. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Simply put, each home is being meticulously built with extraordinary detail and craftsmanship.
It’s a gated community but I decided to check out one of the homes being built because the gate was open presumably for construction traffic. Kinda brazen…but what the hell! I was on the job site of one of the two homes under construction, taking pictures (noone there) and I had spent about 30 minutes inside and out. A couple of neighbors had driven by very slowly when I was walking around the property earlier so I tried to hurry as not to bother anyone anymore. When I was satisfied that I had all the photos I wanted for the time being, I drove to the entrance to the subdivision and the gate was CLOSED!
Now what to do?!
I passed a car on the way out so I thought I’d circle around and see if they were still around. It just so happens he was sitting in front of the house I was looking at just a minute ago. I’m thinking that I’m busted because there was a sign posted in front of the property, as you can see below. 
Well…I didn’t see that sign until I was about to leave, just minutes earlier, and I was taking a photo of it (had the builders name and lot # on it). Imagine looking through the viewfinder lining up the shot to get all of the words in focus and I see the phrase about trespassers. Anyway, I told him what had happened (the truth) and he said to just pull up to the gate and it would open when you got close enough. If I had pulled a little closer to the gate the first time I went to exit the neighborhood I wouldn’t have caused myself all of that stress.
Two weeks later I decide to drive in again (yeah…you’d think I was two bricks shy of a load) to see if I could meet with the builder to get permission to do an “ongoing series kind of thing”, for my blog, about the home being built. I thought that would be an interesting angle because of the extraordinary work going on inside of this home and I’m sure there will be some unique building techniques taking place under this roof. I walk in the home and there’s the gentleman I saw a couple of weeks earlier that helped me escape the neighborhood unscathed. It turns out that he is the exclusive builder of the entire neighborhood so I introduce myself and explain my purpose there and this website. He sounded very interested in the whole idea so I’ve decided to go through with a series of entries on this one home. He is the sole builder of the neighborhood but you’d never guess it by the different look of the homes throughout the neighborhood. I don’t want to give too much away but the builder says it is basically an English cottage style home. The architecture, floor plan, craftmanship and materials being used will BLOW YOU AWAY.
I’m excited about it and look forward to sharing with everyone what’s left to be completed on this authentic homebuild. It’s sure to be interesting!
If you find this article interesting, you may want to check out the whole series of posts on this English-cottage style home and all of the beautiful craftsmanship and materials that go into constructing it.
CLICK HERE
I started as a home-stalker… visiting brand new homes under construction in the neighborhoods near my house. That inspired me to write about home building and home renovation projects — chronicling homes during different phases of construction from a consumer's point-of-view. Basically, the tips you'll find in my articles are a collection of checklists for what I think should (and should not) go into building or remodeling a quality home.
