We recently marked our 100th custom home built, and with dozens of floor plans and styles, there are plenty of designs and ideas for you to choose from when planning your own custom home design.
Check out sketches and floor plans
After we complete a new home build, we upload a sketch and floor plan to our collection of online brochures. You can use these to browse through our work and get ideas, then click through to our gallery to see finished photos of the home design you just looked at. This is a great way to visualize how your new custom home design will come to life, starting with a sketch and plan, and coming together as your new dream home.
Brochures
To see all of our brochures, click here to visit the “Homes We’ve Built” gallery. Here are the types of sketches and floor plans you’ll find in the gallery.
Whether you’re moving across the country or just across town, moving can get expensive. From new boxes, tape, and labels, to rolls of packaging paper and bubble wrap, you may be able to avoid some unnecessary moving costs by using what you already have. As your move-in date approaches, consider setting aside boxes from online purchases or asking local stores if they have extra boxes you can take home with you. In addition to saving boxes, newspapers and mail catalogs can be used as packing material for less fragile items. Often, the kitchen has more breakable items than any other room. With cups, plates, glassware, serving dishes, it can be daunting. One way to tackle this task is by using dish and hand towels, hot pads, or other cloth items. Rather than buying bubble wrap to place between individual plates or to wrap glass cups, you may have enough kitchen towels to place between each plate and cup, to save money and provide good protection for those fragile items.
Donate or sell unwanted items
Over the years we can accumulate more belongings than we know what to do with, and moving is the perfect time to assess what we own and choose what we want to bring to a new home. When you start to pack up a room, set out one box to pack for the new home, one box for donations or garage sale items, and a garbage bin for anything that needs to be tossed. You can free up your new home of some unwanted clutter and save money and time by not having to move those extra items. And if you choose to hold a garage sale, you might even make some money back!
Consider the cost of moving options
If you’ve moved before or have friends and family to help out, you may be able to move yourself and save money. However, it’s important to weigh the cost of both money, as well as your time and energy. Renting your own moving truck, then moving all of your own furniture and boxes, can be a huge task and may not be feasible for some. If you choose to hire a moving company, be sure to ask for estimates from a few different companies to compare prices and services. You may be tempted to go with the lowest cost movers, but be sure to read customer reviews before deciding on a moving company. You’ll want to make sure your belongings are protected and handled appropriately.
Pack with purpose
Especially when there’s a time crunch, it can be tempting to throw random items into a box and call it a day. But packing strategically can save room, minimize the number of boxes you have to carry, and save you frustration when unpacking at the new place. Try to plan ahead and pack your boxes carefully, making sure to utilize available space and keep similar items together. This tip helps if you’re moving yourself, or if you’re paying a moving company by the hour.
It’s normal to have questions about the home building process. What kind of timeline can you expect? How much would it cost? What kind of land can you build on? What customization options are available? We’re happy to offer a free “before you build” consultation, where we can meet with you to go over everything involved with building a custom home. We can answer any questions you have, and help you understand what the process of building a home will be like. This meeting is meant to give you the answers and tools you need to choose a great builder and start preparing to build your own custom home.
Ballpark Estimate
One of the big questions about building a custom home is, “how much will it cost?” In order to estimate the cost of building, you’ll need to have a basic idea of the kind of home you want. You can bring us the plan for a home, or just sketch what you’re looking for, and we’d be glad to give you a ballpark estimate. We try to give a ballpark estimate that will be within about plus or minus 5% of the actual cost to build, and the more details you can give us about the home you want, the more accurate our estimate will be. If you receive an estimate that is close to your budget, we can meet to go over all of the details and specifications that are included in your estimate.
Site Evaluation
Another big hurdle in the home building process is picking out a piece of property that’s suitable to build on. We’d be happy to meet with you at the land or lot to give you our evaluation of how buildable it is during your due-diligence period. We will go over all important factors that need to be considered for building, such as driveway location, foundation types, erosion control, water drainage, building setbacks, utilities, clearing space to build, and more. We can help make the process of picking out land a bit easier, and ensure you get the right property to build your dream home!
At Precision Custom Homes, your new home can be as customized as you want, right down to the choice of lighting fixtures! Here are some ideas of the unique fixtures our customers have chosen for their houses, to help you choose what you want for your own home!
Lighting as a Centerpiece
When choosing a fixture for your front entryway or to hang over a dining room table, you can choose anything! From a classic chandelier or overhead lighting, to more artistic or geometric fixtures, here are a few of our favorites from recently completed custom homes.
Timeless and Modern
You may also want to choose discrete or timeless lighting, like the recessed lighting in these custom kitchens, or the classic overhead light and fan combinations. Here are a few from recent builds.
Match Interior Design
And of course, since your custom home is built the way you want it, you can choose light fixtures to match the interior design and feel of each room. Whether it’s unique hanging lights in a living room, the perfect lighting over a kitchen island, or a combination of lighting styles, here are some we loved installing for our customers!
Endless Options
These are just a small representation of the wide variety of lighting that our customers have chosen. Your options are almost endless when it comes to choosing classic, modern, or artistic lighting!
We have smartphones, smart computers, and now, we can have smart homes. A few years ago smart home technology was new, but it’s had some time to drop in price and improve in both function and quality. Here are some of the current tech options you might want to add to your home.
Security
By now, you’ve probably seen several surveillance cameras and apps on the market. But, there’s more to smart surveillance than just security cameras. Not sure who is at the front door? A smart doorbell can alert you to who may be knocking, and allow you to respond whether or not you’re home. Smart motion sensor floodlights can light up your driveway, front porch, or yard, if motion is triggered, and alert you to the source of motion. You can also choose to have a smart lock, which can allow you to monitor when your door is unlocked, and allows unique passwords so you know who opened the door. There are several do-it-yourself smart security systems to choose from, as well as options for professionally installed and monitored systems, which can all be connected to an app on your smartphone to bring peace of mind no matter where you are. Two of the top rated professional smart security systems are installed and monitored by ADT and by Vivint. For those who want a choice, Simplisafe and Abode can be DIY or professionally installed. And Ring is a fully DIY system.
Convenience and Energy
Not only can you use smart technology to secure your home, you can also use it to make everyday things more convenient or energy efficient. If you just left on a week-long trip and forgot to turn the heater down to save energy while you’re away, with a smart thermostat you can simply change the temperature from your phone. These smart thermostats also allow you to set energy saving preferences to save money in the long term. The list of smart technology for inside homes is almost endless, with smart TVs, sound systems, and voice assistants like Alexa or Echo. There are are smart outlets that you can control from your phone, smart lightbulbs, and even pet cameras and treat dispensers so you can make sure your furry friend is happy while you’re away at work.
Kitchen, Appliances, and Cleaning
The list doesn’t end with security and convenience. Smart appliances are becoming more popular, like a refrigerator that can tell you the weather or show you how to prepare a meal with ingredients you have, or an oven you can set for precision cooking and monitor the temperature remotely. Smart coffee makers, microwaves, air fryers, InstantPots, and the list goes on and on. Whatever you need, there’s probably a smart version of it. A robotic vacuum or mop can keep your floors clean, and even self-empty and recharge to minimize your workload. With so many smart options to help improve your home inside and out, it’s worth taking a look at smart option when you’re looking to buy!
When building your new home, you will probably hear about how important energy efficient features are in the building process, but what exactly does that mean for you and your builder? Here at Precision Custom Homes, we have tons of experience with energy efficiency upgrades, but you may still have questions or want to learn more on your own. Here are some of the best sites for learning about energy efficiency during and after the home building process.
“We’re dedicated to helping our residential customers find ways to save money and energy, whether you’re building a new home, making improvements to an older home or simply looking for ways to save.” Find energy saving tips, energy efficient products, and different programs and incentives for saving more money while improving your home energy efficiency.
“Energy-efficient homes conserve energy, reduce unnecessary energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and demand for non-renewable resources. They provide significant savings over conventional homes.” Learn about 17 super easy ways to improve your home and save money, both when designing your new home, and once you move in!
“The most effective strategy for improving household energy efficiency is to first target your home’s envelope—walls, attic, windows and doors. Then, improve the energy efficiency of systems, such as heating, cooling, lighting and appliances.” From designing and building, to appliances and maintenance, here are some tips to maximize your energy savings.
An easy to digest infographic will walk you through 23 different ways to create a more eco-friendly and energy efficient home from the start! If you have any questions or want to integrate some of these options into your new custom home, we’d love to chat and help you understand all of your options!
The kitchen pantry often ends up being a cluttered catch-all for dry goods, cleaning supplies, and overflow kitchen tools. Here are some practical tips for organizing food and kitchen supplies to get the most out of your pantry!
Pantry Perfection
Whether you’ve been in your house for a while, or you’re looking forward to moving into a new custom home, your pantry can be a breath of fresh air every time you open the door. Instead of being a source of stress behind the closed pantry door, here are some clever organization hacks to help you make the most of every inch of every shelf, in a way that works for you! We’ll explain three straightforward steps to get your pantry from defective to perfected, and talk about some simple methods to get the most out of your space!
1. Check dates and duplicates
The first step in any organization project is to know what you have and only keep what you need and want. We’re all guilty of keeping canned goods or crackers past the expiration date, usually these items get lost on the back of a shelf where we forget about it. Decide what dry goods you actually use for meals and snacks. For any food items you don’t need, you can donate the ones that are fresh, and get rid of the ones that are no longer usable. If you store cleaning supplies or kitchen appliances in your pantry, now is a good time to take a realistic look at what you use and what you can part with. Once you’re happy with the food and supplies you’ve sorted through, it’s time to move to the next step!
2. Sort and organize
Organizing doesn’t mean putting everything away… yet! First, you need to decide which things belong together and what should be most accessible for you to get to and use. You can group together common dinner foods like dry pasta, tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, and cooking oils, you can put together snacks, group canned goods together, put lunchbox items in the same space, whatever works best for you. Maybe you like to have healthy snacks front and center, in which case you might want to consider putting these items in view at eye-level. If you find yourself collecting 4 jars of peanut butter because you forget how many you have at home, try to find a way for these items to be visible so it’s easier to remember what you have and pinpoint what you need at the store.
3. Containers, containers, containers!
Loose bags of individual snacks, paper goods, small boxes, cans, and jars, can all easily get lost on deep pantry shelves. One way to manage and maintain organization in your pantry is to use containers to help keep your items visible and easy to get to. If you find yourself forgetting what you have, try using clear plastic containers (without lids) so you can keep like-items together and always know what you have. Not sure if you have PBJ ingredients or a certain canned vegetable? If they’re organized in clear bins, all you have to do is slide out your bin and see exactly what you have. Once your pantry items are sorted, choosing the right pantry storage containers can make all the difference! If you have small items like cutlery or small snacks, you can also try putting small bins inside a larger one, which can help keep everything sorted and usable, whatever you’re looking for.
We build high-quality custom homes, with unmatched attention to detail. Our quality assurance program ensures you not only get the home of your dreams, but that you can also look forward to living in a solid and well-built home for years to come.!
Right-Sized Organization
We build about a dozen homes per year. This may not sound like a lot compared to large companies that create a hundred “cookie-cutter” homes each year, but we prefer to focus our attention on building unique custom dream homes. We aren’t a small “pickup truck” builder who may build one or two homes a year, though. We choose to take on about a dozen clients each year so we can offer unmatched attention to detail and access to the best products on the market.
Quality
We care so much about the quality of our builds that we even have a team member dedicated to checking quality. With 15 years of building and honing out quality assurance program, we still try to improve with each new home we build. Our building process consists of 55 individual tasks, with quality checks performed each step of the way by our quality check team member. For every single build we do, more than 3,000 quality checks are completed during construction.
Experience and Education
With more than 60 years of combined experience in construction, engineering, and quality assurance, our home builders are at the top of their game. With the amount of experience we bring to the table, it’s rare that we come across a problem we haven’t seen before. You can feel confident knowing that our team is on the job, and ready to handle any common or uncommon issues that can arise during a new home project. Owner Dan Ellsworth is a 2nd generation custom home builder who earned his Engineering Degree from Brigham Young University. His engineering education and experience working as a manufacturing engineer for 10 years brings project management skills, scheduling tools, estimating software, design skills, and quality assurance skills into the custom home building process.
Design & Build
While many builders only build, and many designers only design – and you’re left coordinating between the two parties – we are a team that can take you all the way from designing, to building your custom home. We make sure the design gives you the features and layout that you want in your new custom home, and ensure that it’s designed to our high building standards, as well as the local and state codes.
Communication
Finally, but just as important, we know the home designing and building process can be intimidating, so we will be available every step along the way to communicate with you and answer questions. It’s important to always be able to get in touch with your builder when you need to, and with Precision Homes, your call will always be answered! We have team members dedicated to answering your questions and keeping you up-to-date on progress.
Finding a piece of property for building your dream home is easier than ever with our area-specific searches, available for you to use directly from our website!
How to use
From our website use the top navigation bar to find the “Lot Search” option. Hover over this text to see a drop down menu with different search locations. Click on the area you’re interested in and you’ll be taken to a local real estate search page where you can specify criteria like your desired price range and lot size. Below are some of the areas where you can see custom search results, officially listed through FMLS.
Bartow
From one acre, to five acres or more, inside a subdivision or in a more secluded area, search for your perfect lot and prepare to build your dream home in Bartow!
Cherokee
With wooded lots and acreage inside of popular neighborhoods, you can find a suitable property in Cherokee County to plan your custom dream home.
Pickens
Whether you’re looking for acreage, land with a creek, or the perfect lot inside a neighborhood, you can find a range of options in Pickens County.
Gilmer
Mountain views and wooded lots dominate the market here, but there’s something for whatever type of lot you want in Gilmer.
Gordon
Get off the beaten track in Gordon County, with lake view lots, acreage, neighborhoods, and more.
Dawson
Beautiful wooded lots, lake views, creek lots, and sought-after communities, Dawson County has a lot to offer those looking for a lot to build on.
With spring just around the corner, it’s a great time to get a head start on cleaning and maintenance projects for your home. Here are some suggestions and tips to maximize your results.
Dust and Dirt
Before you get started, if you’re someone who suffers from allergies to dust or pets, it may be a good idea to wear a dust mask, gloves, and even a hat to prevent airborne allergens from getting stuck in your hair. Since cleaning can stir up a lot of dust, starting from the top and working your way down will ensure you don’t have to repeat certain tasks. Dust will eventually fall and settle on lower surfaces, so it’s a good idea to save the lower tasks for last. For example, start by cleaning at ceiling level, like dusting the room’s corners and cleaning off fans., then move on to furniture and other surfaces like the walls, and finally, finish by cleaning the floors. This will make sure you can get rid of the maximum amount of dust, dirt, and allergens.
Fresh Start
It’s easy to forget that sometimes our cleaning supplies need to be cleaned, too. Cleaning out a vacuum before you use it will help it to work more effectively, and prevent dust from accidentally re-entering your home. There may be other tools in your home that could benefit from a tune-up this year: maybe a new mop head or new air purifier filter would help keep your household healthier, and benefit the air quality in your home?
Maintenance
Keeping up with maintenance is a good idea to help you avoid unexpected damages and keep your house in tip top shape. Next time it rains, you might want to go outside afterward to check and make sure your drainage is working properly and flowing away from your home’s foundation. Ensure that your gutters don’t need cleaning, and if they do, be sure to take care of that. Another suggestion is to walk around your home to check for any damages from age, weather, or accidents. And of course, don’t forget to change out your HVAC air filter on a regular basis! This can lengthen the life and efficiency of your HVAC system and ensure you have clean air inside the home.
Seeing photos of a new custom home can be a great way to get familiar with a builder, and get ideas for your own custom home project. But, taking a 3D tour through a home is even better!
3D Home Tours
We like to go the extra mile to provide plenty of inspiration and examples for our current and future customers to use when making decisions about their custom home project. That’s why, as of early 2022, we have almost endless photo galleries for you to browse through, as well as eight full 3D home tours. Click here for a full list of available 3D home tours on our website. Or go here for our newest 3D home tour, a beautiful house nestled in the mountains of Jasper, GA.
How to Navigate the 3D Tour
Once you’ve clicked on a 3D home tour, the link will take you to a loading page. Once your home tour has loaded, you’ll first see a “dollhouse” view from afar, which will automatically zoom you into a 3D walkthrough of the home to get started. You can choose to view the 3D tour as a walkthrough, going from room-to-room, or you can also toggle between several ways to view the home, which are explained below.
Navigating a 3D Walkthrough
Once your 3D tour page has loaded and zoomed in for a walkthrough experience, you can navigate around the house. To look around the room or position you are in, just click-and-hold the left mouse button, and move your mouse to look around. To move to a new position or room, move your cursor and click in the direction you want to “walk” around the house. You will see several circles placed throughout the home, representing different locations you can move to in the 3D tour. To move to one of these nearby locations, just single-click your left mouse button in the direction you want to go. You can also use your mouse or trackpad’s scroll function to zoom in or out at your current location. To easily change the floor level you’re touring, you will see a set of small white icons on the bottom left of your 3D tour window. The third-from-left image, the one that looks like a stack of papers, will allow you to change floors. Just click on the icon and choose your floor level!
Changing Your View
You have a few different options for changing how you view the 3D tour. Looking at the small white icons in the bottom left corner of your tour window, you’ll see options for “Dollhouse” view, “Floor Plan” view, the “Floor Selector”, and the “Measurement Mode”. If you switch your viewing mode, one of the view option icons will be replaced by an “Explore 3D Space” icon that will return you to the 3D walk through. Below we will go through what these icons do and how to use them.
Dollhouse View
Click on this icon to see the home in “Dollhouse” view. It’s exactly how it sounds: you can click-and-drag with the left mouse button to look around the outside of the home, as if it were a dollhouse. You can also use the scroll feature on your mouse or trackpad to zoom in and out.
Floor Plan View
This option will zoom out your perspective to an overhead view of the floor plan of an entire level. To change which level you’re looking at, use the “Floor Selector” icon to select which level you’re looking at. Similar to the 3D walk through view and the Dollhouse view, you can click-and-drag or scroll to move around the window.
Floor Selector
This “Floor Selector” icon allows you to easily and quickly navigate between different levels of a home. You can use this option while in the 3D walk through view, and in the Floor Plan view. Use the mouse to move the floor plan around your window.
Measurement Mode
This tool allows you to measure the length of one or more lines, in a 3D space. You can use this in any of the three viewing modes. When you click on this icon it will turn red, indicating you can use the ruler. To turn off the measurement mode so you can resume moving around the home, simply click the ruler icon again. Tt will change back to white, indicating the tool is no longer active. To use the measurement tool, once you’ve activated it, click the on-screen “+” button to add lines. The tool will tell you the estimated real-life measurements. To delete your measurements, press the “escape” (Windows) or “delete” (Mac) button on your keyboard.
Just before the new year, Pantone announces their Color of the Year – a prediction of upcoming design trends. This year, the color is “Very Peri” or more formally, PANTONE 17-3938.
Design Trends
Very Peri is a brand new color created by Pantone this year, and is described as a red violet infused blue hue. When it comes to designing the interior of your home, Pantone’s Color of the Year may be a creative place to start when thinking about things like an accent wall, furniture colors, or interior decorations. Maybe it’s not your color, or maybe it is, but either way it’s a fun place to start when thinking about how you want your home to look and feel!
Why This Color?
When Panton announced the 2022 Color of the Year, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute Leatrice Eiseman had this to say, “Encompassing the qualities of the blues, yet at the same time possessing a violet-red undertone, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expression.”
What the Color Evokes
Combining the trustworthy feelings that often come from the blue color family, with the inventive feeling of red violet, Very Peri is a color that is meant to bring about feelings of positive creativity and joy.
Last Year’s Color(s) of the Year
In 2021, a year of uncertainty for many, Ultimate Gray and Illuminating Yellow were chosen as Pantone’s colors of the year, representing “feelings of thoughtfulness with the promise of something sunny and friendly.” For more about these colors, check out our Color of the Year article for 2021.
As 2021 comes to a close, here’s a look back at our past year. From earning the Best of Houzz Service award again, to sharing our work with you on social media, here are some of the highlights.
Best of Houzz Service Award for 2021
We take our responsibility seriously when it comes to building high quality homes for our customers, keeping you updated along the way, and providing you and your family with a house that will keep you safe and happy for years to come. We’re glad to see our dedication to hard work being recognized for the fifth consecutive year by Houzz, as Precision Custom Home Builders was awarded Best of Houzz Service for 2021!
New Homes, New Photos
When we complete a home, we like to give our customers – and anyone who may be curious – the chance to take a look and see the final product. This year, we’ve uploaded seven new galleries to our Facebook page, filled with photos of every room and detail we could think of! From open floorplan living environments and spacious bathrooms, to cozy fireplaces and beautiful kitchens, we know a big part of building your custom home is dreaming about what it could be. That’s why we make sure to upload plenty of photo galleries of our recent projects to give you ideas and inspiration for your future custom home.
Modern Ways to Tour Homes
Along with photo galleries, we like to give you a chance to really immerse yourself when touring a custom home online. That’s why we continue to provide new drone video and 3D tours of certain homes. Get a bird’s eye view of the property and glide through the interior with one of our drone tours, or take a self-guided 3D tour around the inside of a new home, giving yourself time to focus on each detail you might want to use in your own custom home.
Blogs to Build Community and Provide Tips
We believe in giving back and building up our community, and that’s one of the reasons we provide free blogs ranging from home building tips to community content. This year, we have 24 blogs focusing on things like the top local restaurants and best parks for kids, to community overviews so you can choose the best location for your family to build, to reasons you might want to consider when deciding whether it’s time to start a new custom home project.
Thank You
Most of all, we’re grateful for all the wonderful customers we’ve worked with this year. We love what we do, and we couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for a great 2021!
With so many families renting or buying older homes, here are some important factors to consider when deciding if building a new custom home is right for you.
Less Maintenance
Renting can be a good option, especially in the short term, but it can be frustrating when a pipe breaks or the AC stops working, and you have to rely on the landlord or rental company to call maintenance crews to come out. Similarly, you may pay less upfront for a used home, but often the cost of maintenance can outweigh the benefits of those savings. AC and heater units, appliances, roof shingles, rusty pipes, and DIY upgrades, can all cause expensive surprises. With a new home, you can rest easy, knowing that you will have little maintenance to worry about for years to come.
Better Materials
Another thing that can contribute to lower maintenance costs, and lower bills as well, are more modern building materials. Energy efficiency has improved dramatically from decade to decade, and buying a new home or building a custom home to your specifications, means you can choose the best windows, doors, appliances, and building materials, to save you money on bills and maintenance down the road.
Move-in Ready
If you’ve bought an older home, you may be familiar with having to renovate or repair a house before you can move in. For some people, that can be a fun project, but for many, it’s a headache better to be avoided. With a new custom home, you can choose exactly what you want, and know that your home will be move-in ready as soon as it’s complete!
Safer Building Codes
While older houses aren’t necessarily unsafe, there have been improvements to building code over the years that make new homes safer than ever. Knowing you won’t have to worry about old asbestos insulation, lead in outdated paint, or dangerous single-pane annealed glass windows, can offer a great relief, especially to families who want to make sure their home is as safe as possible!
Located in Ball Ground, GA, Gibbs Gardens is a hidden gem in North Georgia! The more than 300-acre garden is filled with old trees, fern-banked water features, seasonal daffodil fields, a Japanese-style garden, and much more.
Designed by an Expert
Jim Gibbs is the retired president and founder of Gibbs Landscape Company, one of Atlanta’s best landscaping companies for more than four decades. Gardening runs in his family, and he once said “Passing down seeds and plants from generation to generation provides a kind of love that only a gardener understands.”
The Gardens
Inspired by 15 years of national and worldwide travel, Jim Gibbs dreamed of creating a picturesque, world class garden. With 16 distinct gardens, 24 ponds, 32 bridge crossings, and 19 waterfalls, it’s safe to say his dream came true! The gardens stretch over 300 acres with beautiful winding paths through feature gardens like the Japanese and waterlily gardens. Take in the serene sounds of the natural stream, lined with lush ferns, or stroll through the daffodil fields in spring!
Seasonal Beauty
As a master gardener, Jim Gibbs knew a thing or two (or three!) about designing gardens that would create beauty and wonder throughout the year. In spring, the world’s largest display of daffodils comes alive, painting the garden’s 50 acres of fields in yellow and white flowers. There are more than 20 million daffodils, representing more than 200 varieties of the flower! In summer, the lush gardens offer shade and beauty. And in fall, everywhere you look are bright fiery reds, oranges, and yellows.
Learn more
For updates, current hours, and special events, you can learn more on the Gibbs Gardens website here.
The Rock Garden in Calhoun, GA is such a unique place to visit, it’s a must-see if you live in or visit Northwest Georgia. Here’s some of why the Rock Garden deserves a local spotlight!
It’s free!
Open and free for the public to visit and enjoy, the Rock Garden has free parking and picnic areas, and is open year round, so you can wander through the grounds and explore at your own pace. Pets are welcome, and the garden is family-friendly.
Amazing folk art
Completely hand built by volunteers, the garden contains more than 50 miniature buildings, made of pebbles, shells, old glass, broken ceramic, cement, and other materials. These artistically crafted miniature building imitate churches, homes, and some even have stained-glass windows! Small figures of people and animals can be found around the buildings, and there’s even a miniature building modeled after the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
Miniatures
There’s so much to explore and discover at the Rock Garden. You may find miniature replicas of whole cities, of ancient landmarks, and bridges traversing over water. If you’re able to catch a look inside some of the buildings, you may see colorful light bouncing onto the interior walls of a miniature building, through its stained glass windows.
History
The garden was built by DeWitt “Old Dog” Boyd, who began creating the miniature and whimsical buildings and tiny towns for his own children as they lived in different placed. In 2007, he began building the Rock Garden behind the Calhoun Seventh Day Adventist Church, where it grew to what it is today.
Learn more
For updates, current hours the garden is open to the public, and special events, check out their Facebook page here.