Exploring Walking Trails in Spartanburg, SC With My Good Dogs

A LOT has happened in my life since my last post. 

1. I've sold my Charleston, SC house.
2. I've purchased my Spartanburg, SC house, and 
3. My dogs and I have MOVED to Spartanburg!

I've spent so much time packing and unpacking the past few weeks that I feel like I've been neglecting my poor dogs, so today we went exploring in Spartanburg.

Now.  I lived only a few miles away from Spartanburg, SC for 40 years.  I did some graduate work at USC-Upstate back in the 80s, so I came to Spartanburg daily for a time.  I used to always shop in Spartanburg several times a year, etc.  I've had to spend time in Spartanburg Hospitals in the past and I've visited many other people in those hospitals.

What I'm trying to say is Spartanburg is not really new to me, but since I have been away from this area for 22 years now, there have definitely been a LOT of changes!  Whole new neighborhoods have been built.  So many new businesses are here now.  New roads are everywhere and on and on.  

It is a city now where it used to be a town when I was growing up.  I have a LOT of exploring to do in the coming years.

I simply love the area, and I like exploring the city of it: stores, restaurants, etc., but my dogs like to explore more natural settings, so today we went in search of a nice trail through the woods that would make them happy.  

I was trying to find the Cottonwood Trail, but I was having major problems.  My GPS lady (whom I believe has some sort of serious mental disorder) took me to Spartanburg High School and said, "You have arrived!"

What? 

Crazy.  There is no evidence of a trail right in front of Spartanburg High School.  Ugh.

So...the dogs and I rode around a bit.  I assumed I was close to the trail, I just couldn't find it at first, but then, luckily, I turned down Beachwood Drive and saw a sign for the Edwin M. Griffin Nature Preserve. I pulled into the parking area there, got out of the car, and read the sign (pictured below). I saw that the Cottonwood Trail is actually one of the trails in the Edwin M. Griffin Nature Preserve. 

Who knew?

I had stumbled upon the very place I wanted to be!!  Amazing!

One of the first things I saw was the sculpture seen below.  I loved the place immediately.  I put the leashes on the dogs; we chose a trail; and off we went into the woods!

Dolly and Stark led the way.

The sky was impossibly blue.  We happened upon these dead trees.  Beautiful even in death on this perfect day.

We walked and walked and only passed one person for a long time.  Suddenly we happened up on this gorgeous sturdy bridge.  Dolly was so happy!  She always loved crossing the bridges at Magnolia Plantation near our Charleston house.  She excitedly pulled ahead.  It made me smile so big!

On the other side of the bridge was a little park with picnic tables and benches.  The grass was all mown.  It was like a little oasis in the middle of the wood.  Lovely.
Lawson's Fork Creek flows under the bridge beside the park.  I caught myself looking for gators to make sure my dogs were safe, and it made me laugh out loud!  No gators to worry about in the Upstate.  I knew that.  Duh. 

The dogs and I walked around the little clearing and happened up on several other trails.  We chose a little loop of a trail that crossed another small bridge and circled back to the big bridge.  Dolly really loves the bridges.  Below the dogs are pictured standing on the large bridge.

Stark

Dolly (Look how happy!)

We chose a more traveled trail back to the car and passed other people walking dogs, along with runners and other people just out for a stroll on a beautiful day.  

It was such a pleasant walk.  We will definitely go back here and explore the other trails another day!

Mama's Hats

When I was a little girl, my Mama had a big cedar wardrobe that she kept locked.  I can still see the little skeleton key.  She locked it because it was full of things that delight a little girl's heart.  Precious things that need protecting from little sticky hands.

Gorgeous dresses and hats and high heeled shoes all smelling of spicy sachet and cedar.

On the rare occasion that Mama needed to get something from that cedar wardrobe, she would sometimes let me try on the hats and clothes.  As I look through the decades today, I can't think of a single thing in my childhood that made me happier.

Lace and sheer sleeves on the dresses. Buttons in all shapes and sizes. 1940s hats with veils and nets that came down over your face.  Older elaborate hats from the 1920s. Big wide-brimmed Southern Belle hats that made me think of afternoon tea with cookies. High heels to die for.  I'd clomp around the house all decked out in the finery, and Mama would laugh, but I didn't care.  I loved playing dress up.

All my childhood I couldn't wait until I was big enough to really wear those clothes, but I never grew that big.

My Mama was 5'11" tall barefoot in her prime and she wore a size 11 narrow shoe.  If she had been born in my time instead of hers, she could have been a fashion model.  Tall and thin and beautiful with milky skin the envy of every woman who saw her and bright green eyes.

The last time I tried on her hats I was a teenager and finished growing.  I knew then that I would never be able to wear her dresses or fill her shoes (in more ways than one).  But the hats!  I loved those hats!

It was in my 20s that I first wondered why Mama had so many beautiful things when she never wore them.  There was nowhere to wear such things in Blacksburg, South Carolina.  Most of the things were even too fancy for church.

One day in my 30s my Mama took a box out of her old cedar wardrobe that I'd never seen before.  It was all the way full of cameos.  Gorgeous cameos.  Necklaces.  Brooches.  Pins.  Beautiful.  Mama asked me if I wanted some of them.  I took two.  I still have them, and I wear them often.  They are beautiful and appear to be from the 1940s.  I asked Mama where she got all those cameos, and she told me people used to give her things.

That is when I realized my Mama had a past I knew nothing about.  I spent decades trying to get Mama to tell me stories about those dresses and hats and cameos.  Where did she wear them?  Was it a party?  Who was she with?  Mama would only ever smile and change the subject.  Which means nothing, of course.  Mama was a secretive thing.  She loved her secrets and took them with her to her grave.

Still, sitting here today thinking about those hats, I wonder.  Yes.  I wonder. Today those old hats smell of adventure to me!  Adventure and mystery, and I can't help but wonder whatever happened to them. I'm guessing they, too, took their secrets to their graves, but I think I will never know for sure.  Not in this life.

1920s Cloche Hats

Equifax and Corporate Entitlement

Equifax is what my Mama would have called "Full of Itself." 

First they think it is okay to collect all our financial information without our permission and give us a "credit score" used to alter our lives, and now they think a slap on the wrist is good enough punishment for having allowed such information to be stolen.

Only ONE FREE YEAR of credit monitoring for endangering my credit for the rest of my life???  How is that a just and fair punishment???

This is not my first rodeo. The state of South Carolina already gave my information to hackers long ago. Because of that I always keep my credit frozen unless I am buying a house or car or applying for credit or something. I unfreeze it for that, then I freeze it again. Having said that, here's what I think:

I think signing up for the Equifax free year of credit monitoring is the only way to make them pay anything at all for letting hackers have my information. Since the hackers already have my info, I see no harm in entering it again to sign up for this service. Besides, my credit is frozen. So what do I have to lose by trying to get the free year?  I've been trying and trying and trying.

Equifax sincerely does NOT want anyone to sign up for the free year of credit monitoring.

First you enter your information and they basically tell you, "Yes! I did allow your information to be stolen!" but they use less true words. Then they give you a date in the future when you have to come back to their site on that particular date to sign up again. YOU have to remember the date, site URL, etc. You will receive no reminder of any kind, and if you forget, tough luck.  No free year of credit monitoring for you.

If you do set yourself a calendar alarm and go back to their site, you will enter even more of your information this time and then they will tell you that you will receive an email at some point in the future...maybe a week or more later...and the email might go in your spam folder so you have to be sure to look there everyday too. The email will have a link you can click to sign up.

I finally received the email about a week after signing up.  The email comes from TrustedID and looks like SPAM. The Subject says: Update on your TrustedID Premier Product. You have to open the email to see the word Equifax, which is an image, so you also have to have images turned on in your email to see it.  IF you do all that and believe the email is really from Equifax, you can use the link.

I clicked the link in the email  and completed the information they wanted to know.

Yep.  You guess it.  Their website was not working.  It also did not work the next day.  I emailed them and got two form email responses saying a customer service person would contact me. 

No.  No customer service person ever contacted me.

After waiting several days I just then got the website to work; entered my information; answered a pile of personal questions and supposedly have been signed up for the free credit monitoring.

However, NOW their website tells me that my free account will take at least 48 hours to become active, and I will have to come back after two more days to see if they really did activate my free credit monitoring. 

I bookmarked the site and will go back days later because I am stubborn.  I have to remember the password I used, the site address, etc. but I will do it. 

I expect to be less than impressed.

I think this runaround is a way for them to keep people from actually being able to sign up, or it is a way for them to frustrate people into NOT signing up and taking advantage of the free year of credit monitoring.

Most people are not as stubborn as me.  Most people would not waste that much of their time and jump through all the hoops to get this service.  I am not most people.

Equifax will do everything in its power to keep from having to pay one red cent in goods, services, or money for selling out millions of Americans, including me.  They obviously feel entitled to be able to do this with no consequences.

Makes me so very angry.

They should be prosecuted. The executives should do jail time. At the very least, the company should have to pay each victim the amount of money they have made off their information without their permission over the years. The victims should be paid money for this. Money is the only thing these greedy corporate slime monsters understand. If we don't make an example of them, others will not invest their time and money to secure our information either. Equifax needs to pay.

That is what I think.  It is time to put an end to corporate entitlement.  We, the People, need justice.

If you had possession of my personal property and allowed someone to steal it, what do you think would happen to you?

Remembering My Mama on Her 100th Birthday

Today would have been my Mama's 100th birthday. I can't help but think about her on such a day.

Mama was born on a farm in a tiny little town in Cleveland County, North Carolina on Monday, August 27, 2017. She was the third of seven children. Five girls and two boys. All were well loved and remained close all their lives. Two are still living!  When my Mama passed away, a dozen years ago now, she was holding the hand of her baby sister, Jean. That says a lot.

When Mama was born, there were not many cars in her part of the world.  Horses and mules were still used for transportation and plowing the good red clay dirt in the area.  Mill towns were scattered all around, up and down the hill country where she lived, fed by the railroads and powered by the rivers.  Mama was a weaver in one of those mills for a time when she was in her 30s, but Mama's family were farmers. She was never far from a garden until her arthritis prevented her from digging.  Even then she had potted plants until the day she died.  

Mama loved all living things, and would feed anything that crossed her path, cats, dogs, children, horses, chickens, goats, ducks...whatever...Mama's solution to most of the world's problems was to make sure everyone and everything in her path had plenty to eat.

Mama was born during the last year of World War I.  She lived through the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all the Wars since, but she never really dwelt very much on those times.  If asked about the Great Depression, she would simply say, "We were farmers. We were the lucky ones. We had plenty to eat." 

Mama surrounded herself with plants and animals.  While she was still able to live alone, she generally had inside plants, dogs, cats, birds, and fish and outside gardens, plants, dogs, cats, and horses in her pasture, although the horses belonged to someone else, Mama petted them like they were hers.  

We never had any money, but we always had food.  We usually ate vegetables only during the week.  Mostly beans and potatoes or whatever we grew in the garden and canned, but we almost always had meat on Sundays.

Later in life Mama went to work at Wendell Plastics cutting cloth and plastic cloth because she had lost part of one of her fingers weaving in a cotton mill.  She had a fear of weaving after that and would never do it again even though it would have been more money and less stressful on her body.  Fear is a powerful thing.  Cutting the cloth and tough plastic cloth ruined Mama's hands.  She retired at 62 with several types of arthritis already limiting her movements.  

The demon, arthritis, crippled her in the end.

Mama enjoyed her retirement.  She took care of her youngest grandchildren for those first few years.  She loved my younger sister's children so much.  She loved all her grandchildren, but the very youngest was the only girl in the bunch.  All the others were grandsons.  Mama cherished that granddaughter most of all.

Mama's life spanned the time of booming technology.  She went from candlelight to everyone having electricity.  Indoor plumbing became popular even in the countryside during Mama's lifetime.  Running water...right inside the house!!  Imagine such a luxury!  Hot water in the spigot!  It was a time of miracles.  Telephone lines were strung across America and the telephone finally made its way into Mama's life.  What magic!  Imagine!  Radio.  Television.  Movie theaters were built even in the back-country towns of North Carolina.  Electric stoves, refrigerators,  air conditioning, all made their way to the North Carolina hills. Phonographs became popular even among the very poor.  More and more people had cars and tractors suddenly did the plowing for you.  Everything changed.  People started carrying phones in their cars and then in their pockets.  Personal computers became commonplace.  People even used hand held calculators instead of doing their own arithmetic.  Also arithmetic became math!

Just imagine these last 100 years!

The most important thing that happened for me was the birth of that baby girl on a Monday 100 years ago today on a farm in the hill country of North Carolina, my Mama.  Without her, I would never had been at all.

Happy Birthday up in Heaven, Mama.  I remember you.

---

Mama

Monday's Child is Fair of Face - Mama's Many Faces

A Writer MUST Write

I've been writing poetry today.  It's the first time I've written in a long time.  My fingers lost their voice for awhile, I guess, but today I feel like writing again.  I even submitted a few unpublished (in any form) poems for publication.  We'll see how that goes, but for now I'm sharing this poem I wrote today with you.  Enjoy!

---

My Fingers Lost and Found Their Voice

My fingers used to FLY over the keys
Blurred in their flurry to write
Words appearing so quickly
It was hard to keep up
Until my man dog, Buster, died

Grief will take the wind out of your sails
Leaving you deflated, sad, lonely
It will silence your voice for a time
Almost as if your voice has to heal
Recover from the rawness of shedding all those tears
On a horrifying thief of a Tuesday night in a December years ago

You suddenly find your life a corpse 
Stitched together with uneven stitches as in an autopsy
Turned upside down and inside out and ugly, exposed
The sutures broad, tight, unforgiving, paralyzing
Holding your thoughts for ransom in a world gone grey
Without the only thing that ever colored your life happy
Your fur child, your companion, your friend

The years finally pass; the sutures finally rot and dissolve and
Your fingers free themselves from the grief
The words come quickly again
Spilling onto the page like alphabet soup
But the grief will never be done with you
It rears its ugly head when you least expect it
You catch a familiar whiff in the air and find the memory it stirs is tinged with joy and grief
At the same time
Unlikely, improbable, crazy - I know
But there it is

Memory is a tricky thing
The memories you want to lose are made of the kind of glue they use
To stick price tags on Christmas gifts
Impossible to remove
The remnants remain decades later when you find the boxes
In the attics and cellars of estate sales
The glue becomes a part of who you are
Later in life you find yourself thinking
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
As your fingers release the words you need to say
On a sunny August afternoon

HOUSE SOLD! Closed 10/18/2017

SOLD!!

---

1720 Jessamine Rd

Charleston, SC 29407

---

$10,000 price drop!!  Now listed at $189,900! 

DOG DOORS
HUGE FENCED BACKYARD MAKE AN OFFER!
House for sale!  MLS Number: 17015919  You can view it ANYTIME by calling Stephanie Davis  at 843-568-0339 and making arrangements to see it.  Inside the Mark Clark for LESS THAN $190,000!!!

Location location location! This house is 10 to 15 minutes from downtown Charleston, a short drive to the beach, an easy walk to shopping or healthcare, near hospitals, a mall, a park with basketball and tennis courts, dog parks, restaurants, movie theaters, etc., and very convenient to the airport and both I-26 and I-526.

It is a great walking neighborhood with old growth trees and flowers. All the neighbors are very friendly (BEST neighbors ever!), but what I love most about this house is it is a dog lover's dream! There is a dog door that goes from the kitchen to the garage and another dog door from the garage to the huge fully fenced and very shady backyard. There is access to water and electrical outlets both in front of the house and in the back, and there is plenty of room to garden. 

The house is an adorable cinder-block cottage in the heart of the West Ashley section of Charleston, SC. It is located in the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood, which is inside the Mark Clark (I-526) on the Charleston side of Sam Rittenberg.  

The home boasts:

• Original hardwood floors
• Large rooms
• Ceiling fans in both bedrooms and in the living room.  New ceiling fan in master bedroom.  
• Attic storage as well as storage above the attached garage.  
• Linen closet in bath.  Pantry in kitchen.  Additional storage closet in kitchen. Hallway storage closet.  Closets in both bedrooms.  This much closet space is rare in an older home.
• The electrical system is updated including a new breaker box. 
• New sewer line run. 
• Bathroom has been updated including a tile floor. 
• Home has a single car attached garage. 
• Huge fenced in yard. (6 ft privacy fence on three sides. 6 ft chain length fence on forth side.)
• Street to street lot. Front yard faces Jessamine Rd. Backyard faces Wappoo Drive.  You can drive into the large backyard through the gate in back.  
• Old growth trees - Magnolia, Crepe Myrtle, Live Oak, Sweet Gum, Black Cypress.  The property is very shaded for those long Charleston summers.
• Camellia bushes, a blueberry bush, a muscadine grape vine, a long stem red rose, lantana, azaleas
• Lot is .26 acre.  Possibility of re-zoning and splitting lot to sell a portion of the backyard if desired in the future.  $1000+ survey already completed and comes with the house.
• Custom blinds. 
• New refrigerator and gas water heater in 2013. New garbage disposal 2014. New stack washer/dryer in 2017.  New energy efficient toilet in 2017. 
• All new double-pane, tilt-in to clean, energy efficient windows with night locks as well as regular locks. 
• Roof guaranteed through September 2018.  Guarantee transferable to new owner. 
• Fresh paint inside and out!

All for Under $190,000!!!

1720 Jessamine Rd; Charleston, SC 29407

Front Door

Red Heeler NOT FOR SALE!!

Very large living room.

Large bedroom.

 2nd Bedroom

Linen closet in bathroom.  New bathroom fixtures and grab bar added to tub.

Tile floor in bath.

New energy efficient chair height toilet - May 2017

New refrigerator. Water filter produces bottled water quality drinking water.  Replace filter twice a year.

Pantry in kitchen - Kitchen dog door goes to garage and can be locked.

New energy efficient washer/dryer 2017. Lockable dog door from garage to large fenced backyard.

New gas hot water heater. 
I had hot water during the electrical outage from Hurricane Matthew!

Dryer is vented out garage window.

New motion activated flood lights in backyard on both left and right sides of the house. Dim from dusk until dawn.  Bright when motion activated.  They turn themselves off during daylight hours.  Energy efficient bulbs.

Gas pack HVAC system.  Central heat and air.  Heat is gas. AC is electric in this one system.

HUGE backyard faces Wappoo Drive. Fence in back has gate large enough for car to drive through.

Rocking chair front porch.  Attached one-car garage.
1720 Jessamine Rd.; Charleston, SC 29407

First Day of School

Here in lovely Charleston, South Carolina it is the first day of school for most students.  I spent part of this morning enjoying all the "first day" photos of my friends' children on Facebook.  Many of the younguns in the photos were holding signs saying things like, "First Day of First Grade!" or "First Day of Second Grade!"  They were all just adorable, and I find it amazing that those babies are growing up so fast.

My own granddaughters are both high school students this year.  The older is a Senior.  So hard to believe they are almost adults.

Time is such a tricky thing.

After seeing the photos I turned my attention to my teacher friends' posts.  Some said things like, "I'm so happy to be retired!" but most said things like, "I'm ready for the new year!" with excitement and happiness and hope. 

Teachers are like that.

With each new year they start anew.  Full of possibilities and plans.  Each bright new face reminds them why they decided to enter the teaching profession.  They are overworked and underpaid and certainly underappreciated, but they are driven to make a difference.  I've come to believe it is in their genes.  They have to help to be fulfilled in life.

If humans had breeds like dogs, teachers would be herders. 

Think about it a minute.  You can say these same things about both teachers and herding breed dogs.  They both:

• have to go to school/training for a long time in order to do their jobs effectively
• enjoy orderliness 
• demand respect from their herd/students (at least while in their presence)
• keep a watchful eye on everything
• immediately jump into action when one of their responsibilities strays from the herd (classroom)
• break up fights
• teach others how to behave
• move large numbers of beings from one place to another in an orderly fashion (lunchroom, recess, special subject areas, buses, etc./barn, field, pasture, truck, etc.
• remove troublemakers from the herd/classroom as needed
• understand that love and discipline go hand in hand
• make a difference to all who know them
• are well loved or well hated depending on the circumstances
• often inspire and delight all who know them
• have changed my life for the better

What would you add to this list?  

Hopefully everyone has a great year this year!  I'm hoping for many changes for the best!

For those of you who have time to explore, click HERE to see pictures of the training classes my herding dogs have completed. 

Have a great day!! 

This was my high school.  Torn down in the 1970s.
I marvel that I lived through all those school years with no air conditioning!

Love is a Verb

Something I read the other day reminded me of how important love is in our lives, which made me think about the last time someone told me, "I love you," and really meant it.

It was today.  It is always today because I speak with my older sister everyday and she always tells me, "I love you," and she always means it. I know this because she has always been there when I needed her.  She knows love is a verb, an action word.  She doesn't love me for what I can do for her, she loves me for the person I am no matter what I do or say.  She loves me anyway.

My sons always say, "I love you," to me too, and I know they mean it because if I really needed them, I feel that they would be there for me.  They know love is a verb, and they know that their father can remarry a million times, but they will never have a Mama who is not me.  I am the Mama who gave birth to them and raised them.  I am the Mama who has loved them since before their first breaths.  There is no substitute for that kind of love.

My granddaughters love me as best they can.  They have been raised far away from me physically, so they have only ever seen me a few times in their lives.  Still, I believe them when they tell me they love me.  They are my flesh and blood, and that is a powerful thing.

I have many friends who love me.  People who are always concerned for my welfare.  People who want to spend time with me, and time is a precious thing.  Time is life.  Giving time to someone is giving a part of yourself to them, so I know those people love me, at least a little bit.

I have family that I haven't seen in years, but I know they love me. We have history together, them and me.  History and DNA.  They understand me for the most part. Blood is thicker than water, like my Mama always said.

Then I started thinking about who loves me every single day.  You should know that I am a difficult person to love every single day, but I am absolutely loved every single day by my good dogs who are my present family.  A person who has the love of a dog is blessed indeed.  I am double blessed.

Dogs love unconditionally, and they show you they love you unconditionally every single time they are around you.  Dogs know love is a verb.

Now.  Let's talk about my non-existent love-life for a minute.  I've done some soul searching lately to try to figure out why I've chosen to never remarry.  I was married for 22 years, and now I have been divorced for 22 years.  Life would be so much easier if I were married.  My house would have two incomes.  I'd have help carrying things in from the car.  I'd have a confidant, a friend, a lover, at my beck and call.  I know these things, but I also know that I have major trust issues when it comes to men.  They tend to lie to me.  Pretty much constantly, and worse than the lies, they expect me to believe what they are saying when every piece of data available to me tells me they are lying.  I just can't do it anymore. 

Life should never have so much drama in it.  Never.

Love should have trust attached to it.  Always.

More than a few men have said, "I love you," to me in my lifetime, but they were not really using the word "Love" as an action word. They were really saying they loved the way I look or the way I act or the way I cook or whatever.  Most of them never even knew ME, the ME I am inside.  They couldn't tell you my favorite things.  They couldn't tell you the names of people important to me.  It never bothered them when they hurt me or made me cry.  I know this because they kept doing the same things over and over that hurt me and/or made me cry.  If it bothered them they would have not done that more than once.

The men in my life, who were romantic interests, have loved the things I did for them, but they never loved me.  Sad.  I know, but that is the truth of it.

I have known the true love of men in my life though.  My father loved me more than life itself, but he died when I was seven.  All three of my brothers loved me.  They were always there for me if I ever needed them.  They knew all my secrets, my heartaches and joys.  They called me often just to talk, or I'd call them.  We were all so close.  My brothers are all passed away now.  I miss them.  My sons all love me too.  They know the things that are special to me, and they tell me they love me and mean it when we speak. 

Who adds love to your life?  Who SHOWS you love?  Who just says it without ever showing you they mean it?

Something to think about today.  

House SOLD! Closed 10/18/2017 West Ashley, Charleston, SC 29407

House SOLD!

---

1720 Jessamine Rd

Charleston, SC 29407

---

$5000 price drop!!  Now listed at $194,900! 

DOG DOORS
HUGE FENCED BACKYARD MAKE AN OFFER!
House for sale!  MLS Number: 17015919  You can view it ANYTIME by calling Stephanie Davis  at 843-568-0339 and making arrangements to see it.  Inside the Mark Clark for LESS THAN $200,000!!!

Location location location! This house is 10 to 15 minutes from downtown Charleston, a short drive to the beach, an easy walk to shopping or healthcare, near hospitals, a mall, a park with basketball and tennis courts, dog parks, restaurants, movie theaters, etc., and very convenient to the airport and both I-26 and I-526.

It is a great walking neighborhood with old growth trees and flowers. All the neighbors are very friendly (BEST neighbors ever!), but what I love most about this house is it is a dog lover's dream! There is a dog door that goes from the kitchen to the garage and another dog door from the garage to the huge fully fenced and very shady backyard. There is access to water and electrical outlets both in front of the house and in the back, and there is plenty of room to garden. 

The house is an adorable cinder-block cottage in the heart of the West Ashley section of Charleston, SC. It is located in the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood, which is inside the Mark Clark (I-526) on the Charleston side of Sam Rittenberg.  

The home boasts:

• Original hardwood floors
• Large rooms
• Ceiling fans in both bedrooms and in the living room.  New ceiling fan in master bedroom.  
• Attic storage as well as storage above the attached garage.  
• Linen closet in bath.  Pantry in kitchen.  Additional storage closet in kitchen. Hallway storage closet.  Closets in both bedrooms.  This much closet space is rare in an older home.
• The electrical system is updated including a new breaker box. 
• New sewer line run. 
• Bathroom has been updated including a tile floor. 
• Home has a single car attached garage. 
• Huge fenced in yard. (6 ft privacy fence on three sides. 6 ft chain length fence on forth side.)
• Street to street lot. Front yard faces Jessamine Rd. Backyard faces Wappoo Drive.  You can drive into the large backyard through the gate in back.  
• Old growth trees - Magnolia, Crepe Myrtle, Live Oak, Sweet Gum, Black Cypress.  The property is very shaded for those long Charleston summers.
• Camellia bushes, a blueberry bush, a muscadine grape vine, a long stem red rose, lantana, azaleas
• Lot is .26 acre.  Possibility of re-zoning and splitting lot to sell a portion of the backyard if desired in the future.  $1000+ survey already completed and comes with the house.
• Custom blinds. 
• New refrigerator and gas water heater in 2013. New garbage disposal 2014. New stack washer/dryer in 2017.  New energy efficient toilet in 2017. 
• All new double-pane, tilt-in to clean, energy efficient windows with night locks as well as regular locks. 
• Roof guaranteed through September 2018.  Guarantee transferable to new owner. 
• Fresh paint inside and out!

All for Under $200,000!!!

1720 Jessamine Rd; Charleston, SC 29407

Front Door

Red Heeler NOT FOR SALE!!

Very large living room.

Large bedroom.

 2nd Bedroom

Linen closet in bathroom.  New bathroom fixtures and grab bar added to tub.

Tile floor in bath.

New energy efficient chair height toilet - May 2017

New refrigerator. Water filter produces bottled water quality drinking water.  Replace filter twice a year.

Pantry in kitchen - Kitchen dog door goes to garage and can be locked.

New energy efficient washer/dryer 2017. Lockable dog door from garage to large fenced backyard.

New gas hot water heater. 
I had hot water during the electrical outage from Hurricane Matthew!

Dryer is vented out garage window.

New motion activated flood lights in backyard on both left and right sides of the house. Dim from dusk until dawn.  Bright when motion activated.  They turn themselves off during daylight hours.  Energy efficient bulbs.

Gas pack HVAC system.  Central heat and air.  Heat is gas. AC is electric in this one system.

HUGE backyard faces Wappoo Drive. Fence in back has gate large enough for car to drive through.

Rocking chair front porch.  Attached one-car garage.
1720 Jessamine Rd.; Charleston, SC 29407