Axis of Ugly: Views from this Gorgeous Interior

Interior attention to detail. 

Exterior attention to detail?
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A grill.  Swathed in vinyl, no less.  Perhaps to match the countertops?  No, to match the ovens.
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Axis of Ugly: Breakfast room window view.  Yard (yes, yard, obviously not garden) door view.  Window above the sink view.  And, probably dining room view, upstairs bedroom views.....
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Why is this acceptable?  Generally it's the person bankrolling the interior demanding the grill, hence, acceptable.  Until that person reads a post like this.  Go ahead, you know you want to show it to him.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Why so hard on this topic?  "Men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art." Pope, 17th century.  Beautiful pics of interiors that denigrate the landscape are harmful to my profession.  
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How to fix this?  Simplest? Hinged shutters, painted color of chair seats, above, in front of grill.  Fold & lean against wall when using grill.  
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Pic via Cote de Texas.
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Axis of Ugly.  Rather proud of that one !!  Would be a great lecture title for Puppet Barbuda.....

New Table Topper

Recent acquisition, below.  She shows 4 coats of paint thru the years, each different.

And the new harvest table, a birthday surprise.

Noticed the hen at my favorite Stone Mountain, GA Old Post Office Antique Mall before lecturing in Williamsburg, VA earlier this month.

Decided to buy her, if she was still there, when I got home.

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She's perfect.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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They wanted $20, got her for $15.  City prices, but I really wanted her.  Breakfast, in the pics, yesterday.  Why did I only buy 3 grapefruit, they taste like candy.

How Would You Solve This?

Quite nice color echo from purple furniture to loropetalum.

What would you do, below, with this 'pedestrian' landscape?  Very tight budget, of course.

Shutters as the budget allows.  More importantly, pruning the shrubs into espalier next to the house.  I'm thinking 10' tall at most.  Lush.
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Adore solutions costing 'zero'.
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Her solution to the improperly scaled window boxes is brilliant.  Remove the wood boxes, place a stone shelf on the iron brackets and place several terra cotta pots.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in a client garden last week.

Choosing Dishes & Joy

What is the fuss about cooking?  

The big event here is choosing dishes, napkins, silver.

 

Before dinner I took pics in the garden.  The light was soft.  Chinese snowball, above, is peeking.
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Cannot imagine living in a home without a beautiful garden.  A moat of grace.  When the world is crazy my garden makes it sane again.  When life harbors great joy my garden increases it.  Potent.
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The best selling book of all time is full of garden metaphors for living.
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Never met Tasha Tudor but understand her favorite line of poetry, 'take joy'.  She's right, joy is always there.  
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken early yesterday evening.  Salad, chicken, field peas with snaps.....  Notice I had dishes with no food commentary?   But the garden wasn't left out !  I do have priorities.

The Perfect Flower Stand

Something new learned from something old, below.

A flower stand must be so fabulous......it needs no flowers!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic taken last weekend in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.  This is from Bassett Hall, home of Abby Rockefeller.
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Love the colors, slab of light, scale, calm, bricks with the redolence of .........     something I can't quite name.    A sweetness with harshness, a story.  

Keeping Quirky in a Landscape

A 1945 cottage guest room, using what the client has.

Its original landscape lost to history.   Awnings, below, will remain.  Delightfully quirky.

Quirkier are the azaleas, above, perhaps early 2000?
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Other parts of the landscape design will be 'done'.  These azaleas are pure Folk Art.  Adore having elements of a landscape design that don't look 'done'.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at client project.  Have seen these shingles used on homes from New York to Georgia.

Everywhere: A Desk

 A desk in the bedroom.

Exactly what's missing in mine.

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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara

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Pic last weekend, same home/garden as previous post.

American Farm House, Now

Farmhouse style with her own flair.

Between formal dining room & kitchen, below.

Few built-ins, below, in the kitchen.

And a surprise in the living room, below.

Braid rug.  Bold.  Been so long since I've seen one it was 'new' again.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend, same home/garden as previous post.

Front Porch Questions

Every element sings together on this front porch.

Field gathered furniture swathed in the came color.

Porch questions.  Is the porch so wonderful I must go inside and see the home?  Is the porch so wonderful I must see the garden?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend, same garden as previous post.

Front Porch

Subtle, original.

 A desk on the front porch.

I must know you from the exterior of your home, before ever knocking on the door.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics from same home/garden as yesterday's post.

Chairs after Lunch

 After the party, or lunch, chairs are pure narrative.

Warmth, connection.

Conversation.
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Grace.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken last month after lunch in the Conservatory.  Torte de Shelle top pic.

Lisa Porter Collection: Vanishing Threshold

Texture, scale, flow, color, invitation, narrative, poverty cycle, light, fragrance, repetition, simplicity, intellect, ceiling, walls, floors & more.

It's all part of vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pic via Lisa Porter Collection.  Take the link, lots of pics, about this home by the beach.  Original article from Traditional Home July 2001.  Photos by Jon Jensen for Traditional Home

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Puppet Barbuda adores this fireplace.  Not at all reminiscent of the stone fireplaces in every flower show across USA redolent of the monolith floating amongst the galaxies at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On the Porch

Unused on an upstairs porch at the master bedroom, below, she brought the sofa downstairs near the kitchen and potager.  Much better, it's been used for a few naps.

My trugs are plastic, functional.  Hers look so good.

My favorite garden boots.  Ankle support, no dirt gets in, the boot works the shovel, not my foot.  Plastic clogs are great for most days but when it's digging & function it's my almost 30 year old Danners.
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Pics taken this month.  Same garden as several previous posts.  Graham Stuart Thomas is excellent on the garden boot.

Design Interiors From Outside

Front porch, below.

 Lamp seen from the front porch, above, and from inside, below.

Further to the left of the lamp, below.

You do know this already?  Interiors must be gorgeous from every garden view.
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Your home is the focal point of the garden.
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Walking with new clients, around their garden, seeing an ugly interior view I will turn my head, look into their eyes and my right eyebrow goes up.  Enough said.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Same home as previous several posts.

A Central Hallway

 Over a century old, the home has a long & wide central hallway copying the dogtrots of old.  Back-in-the-day it was 'air-conditioning'.

Now, it's a place for extra chairs.  Easy to grab for gatherings in other parts of her home.

Cannot imagine the first matriarch of this acreage outside Athens, Ga.  Summertime with no cooling, cooking dinner, and breakfast, daily.  No cell phone, internet.  Only her man, children & workers for interaction.  Laundry, with clothesline, a great effort + time.  Harvesting the kitchen garden, canning.

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Epiphany.  No wonder rural Southerners were tightly bound to their church.

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Women taking the edge off.  Meet & greet comrades in life, unload frustrations, share joys.  Get the gossip, trade successes/failures on life topics.  Hopefully get a good sermon.  Enough to manage another week.

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All this from a dogtrot.    

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same foyer as previous 2 posts.

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Women In History was an elective I took for my engineering degree.  It ignored physical discomfort & religion.    

Foyer & Front Porch

Foyer, below, with garden light.

Window, above, from the front porch, below.

It's my job, vanishing threshold, getting it right.
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This project  uses my entire team: interior decorator, general contractor, foreman, crew team & equipment, carpenter + team, mason+team, pruner+team & of course the homeowner.  We are 3 centuries of experience.
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With no weak links.  Communication flows.  Every ego wanting to know what is not right or not working, how else to get it right?
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And we all love getting dirty.  Homeowner too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken at jobsite yesterday.

Potent Across Genres

Ranking with simplicity, and copying is 

repetition.
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Hodge Podge Lodge is easy, repetition engages the intellect.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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30 years of clients and they all say, "It must be affordable & easy to maintain."  Repetition is a potent tool in your arsenal of skills.
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Pic Paris Through My Lens.

The Camera Test

It's not often we get to see inside, below,

and go outside the same room, below, a century earlier.

Did you know this is how to test your garden?  Take pics in black/white, is the year obvious?  It shouldn't be.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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pics Ottoline Divine.

The Creative's Office

 Don't you adore looking at the office's of creative women?  Seeing, somehow, a helpful narrative.

I travel miles & eras from the view in my office, creating new ideas from all-that-I-am.  Knowing, there are many layers of  'no'  getting to the layer of fabulous.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Daisy Garnett's office.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Bedroom View

Garden design begins inside your home on axis with main views, below.

I assume there is a better view on the opposite wall?  Otherwise, even if this is a B&B I would turn the bed.  It truly looks like advertising photography.
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Have been on the hunt for a diminutive round bedside table.  Must be 2 tier, lovely wood, vintage, French.  Those books, above, make me smile.  There is never a time a stack of books isn't by my bed.
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A girlfriend I never see enough has an incredible French style bed.  And home too.  When we do see each other it is me spending the nite with her and gossiping till sleep takes us.  Next time I'll get pics for you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic My French Country Home.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.