PRC Holiday Home Tour: Garconniere

So Jason and I spent a very pleasant Saturday walking the New Orleans Garden District and touring some spectacular homes dressed in holiday finery for the annual Preservation Resource Center’s Holiday Home Tour. We were blessed with spring-like weather (it has already fled) and DIY Bloody Marys from Cafe Atchafalaya.

I took my camera with me but felt self-conscious about using it as I had once been told that photography was forbidden on the tour… so I don’t have many great photos (though I may go back around on my bike today to take some exteriors). However, I did pull it out to snap one picture of a newly constructed garconniere that I admired behind one of the tour homes. In French it means a bachelor’s apartment or quarters. (I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I learned the meaning of that word from an Anne Rice novel, not from years of expensive college French.)

This structure caught my eye for it’s perfect space efficiency. I wouldn’t even say that it was 14 feet deep, but it lived large when I stepped inside.

The Garconniere

In five years or so, we’re going to have to make some decisions about the Laurel Street cottage. Really we have two options. In five years we (A) do a complete kitchen remodel, update the wiring in the front of the house and ‘camel-back’ the rear (adding a second floor) to create a real master suite, studio space for me, laundry center and room for exercise equipment. Or (B) put the house on the market and go shopping for a larger house.

The idea of the camel-back is frightening. It could last ten months and we (and the dogs) would have to move out completely during construction. But the little garconniere got me thinking maybe we have a third option. We’ve got a wonderfully large lot by New Orleans standards… why not add a second building rather than dismantling and reassembling the main house in a wrenching renovation?

In the meantime, I have rather more mundane updates to make to the house: