Well here we are....

Actually we're not ..... not at Ivyhaus.

Ivyhaus was (and still is) one of the neatest little 60's cottage in the Smoky Mountains. It's small, but full of character. When we bought the house in 1993 the appraiser said it was a great house with lots of potential that just needed a lot of loving care. We agreed, and for 15 years we poured love into that little house.

Inside there were built-in bookshelves, beautiful red oak flooring, a fireplace with a mantel fashioned by a man who used to design china patterns for one of the large china companies.
Floor to ceiling windows. Lots of windows.

Outside there was a verde gris rooster weathervane on the garage, a small greenhouse attached to the garage, a small red barn, huge rhododendrons, laurels, ancient boxwoods (the kind with blue berries) a gorgeous hot pink peony, an equally gorgeous pale pink climbing rose, purple iris and the largest ferns I've ever seen. A creek!!! A bubbling, tumbling creek with a couple of small waterfalls and trails beside that creek thru the laurels that towered over your head. And English ivy filling the huge windowboxes in front and curling around the windows in the keeping room.

We loved it! And it was the perfect place to raise small children, and puppies, and bunnies, and chickens, and a lamb named Dan.