Best Conservatory Dimensions

Front: French doors 5'-6' wide with old windows on each side of

about 30"-32" each. Creating a total average 11'-12' wide.

Side: Old windows connected to each other with 2x4's. Creating

a total average length of 23' long.

Roof: 4-12 pitch with metal roofing.

Interior: Entering thru French doors each side is best dimension, at minimum, 36"-32" for furniture.

"L": Adding an "L" at right angle is most desirable. Not enough space, have another doorway, single door, along the side with a culvert cover for door awning.

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Average best dimension range using old/found materials for conservatory: 11' wide by 23' long.

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Poppets, above notes are copied directly from a email sent to my Macon, GA clients. You've seen their home & garden, & happy dogs, the past few days.

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The last pic, above, is Susanne Hudson's 1st conservatory. Too small, she enlarged it, seen in the top pics. Susanne & I built the conservatory, in my blog header pic, for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, in Douglasville, GA this spring.

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Building a conservatory in my garden, using rescued materials, beginning next week.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Susanne Hudson's conservatory was a feature article in Southern Living magazine. Took these pics in her garden earlier this year. Following my passion, they are not styled.

Depth in Simplicity

Simplicity. Flat wall softened into 3-D with: light fixture, bell, foliage, arbor. Kinetics of bell, gate, foliage, light, invitation for eye & foot. Repetition of color. Just inside the gate, below.

Piquant surpise, below, look closely, an outdoor shower.

Not far away, below, more depth in simplicity with stones in the wall.

Surprise, a second gate, below.

A curve, using iron instead of brick & wood amplifying depth in simplicity.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Athens, GA last month. Same Italianate garden as previous posts. Begun in the 70's this garden is still evolving, enjoy walking thru it. A landscape design class could be taught here.

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Notice the diminutive light fixtures? Perfection. Leaving intact a design feature of th Edwardians.

Diminutive

Historic light fixtures were

often diminutive. Keeping the original says a lot.

This original light fixture, above, told me volumes about my client before meeting her. Of course the entire entry reeks of quiet elegance, intellect, narrative & confidence. What do you want your entry to say about you?

Had to share Peaches, (she lives here) a rescue, above, with you. Intellect? Ha, Peaches has her owner firmly under control.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Details of a Garden Room

Rescued sink, "champagne is on ice in the conservatory", & stand made from leftover structural pieces, century old rescued pine. Rescued culvert, above, has a new life, & the rescued chest, windows, shutter.

How calm the shutter looks, above, hiding the sink. Carpet, #89 granite gravel.

Nap, above, on the daybed in the Garden Room? Notice its pot feet? Having a chandelier & lamps is of utter importance.

Chandelier, for sale, alas borrowed from Le Jardin Blanc, hanging from the tin roof. Ugh, we had to buy the roof. Curtains? Jute erosion control fabric. Bedding borrowed from Susanne Hudson's home, & mine.

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Hydrangea welcome, above. After all it's the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival on the grounds of Le Jardin Blanc.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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You will not believe what this Garden Room looks like. Can't wait to show you the money shot, soon poppets ! Alert, this garden room built solely with the labor of 1 man & 2 women. None labeled 'young' in contemporary culture. Ha, young in what we create. Please, let us create a Garden Room for YOU. It's all we wanna do. Oh dear, this snippet is turning into the lines of a country song......... ta-ta before it gets worse.

Checkerboard Flooring

Checkerboard flooring, below, in shade. Grass won't grow.

12" X 12" concrete squares.

Gorgeous all year. Affordable, low-maintenance, unskilled labor, rain water only. Add crocus, scilla, blue grape hyacinths.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yesterday's client's office has a black/white checkerboard floor. Soon the garden outside her windows will have checkerboard flooring too.

Pic taken last week in Susanne Hudson's garden. She installed the checkerboard flooring herself. 18" X 18" concrete squares? Too heavy. Unskilled labor & woman powered.

WHICH DIRECTION?

This crabapple, below, doesn't have a bad direction. Here, above/below, in Susanne Hudson's backyard.

Looking thru the gate, below, is a view from the frontyard.

Blossoms, below, each had honeybees. Wish you could hear this tree.

Classic Design Recipe, below. Path, gate, arbor, light, picket fence, color theme, bench, potted boxwood, leaf litter mulch, Tara Turf, focal point on axis. (Note: treat this as any good recipe. It works everytime & is unique everytime.)

Crabapple viewed, below, from the front porch. She fills the horizon.

Notice winter's bare branches? I adore the frisson.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last Friday. My favorite direction is from the library, early morning. Alas, we were hard at work on our book project.

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Lighting

When it moves outside it's a trend. Fabulous lanterns. First Rules of Landscape Design: copy, simplicity, repetition.
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SENSUOUS, above. Crunch of gravel, trilling water, warmth of candle light, hearing refreshments poured from a pretty pitcher, feel of foliage upon your arm, repetition of color house-furniture-shutters-arbor-fountain-gravel, scale, flow, texture, vanishing threshold.
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Beauty w/Low Maintenance in the garden is sensuous & feng shui.
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Design, above, for yourself. Grace IS a destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, Michael Partino via Brabourne Farms

DIVA BRAIN vs. LIZARD BRAIN

POVERTY IS A GREAT PRESERVER. Unaffordable harvest tables led my conniving lizard brain to a table I already own. Hideous: oak, mahogany stain, carved clawfoot pedestal, terrible measurements.
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DIVA BRAIN took over from LIZARD BRAIN.
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Dahlings, I hired a man with a power tool, muscle & skill.
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Now, harvest table is an exact 30" wide.
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Soon, faded green stain, same as the teak in my garden, will fabulously display the triumph of DIVA over LIZARD..
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That hired man? He hung a pair of antique gilt/chrystal chandeliers over my harvest table. They've changed my life.
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Only 2 weeks & the chandeliers are a morning ritual. Arising before the sun, walking into the kitchen, along with cat entourage, I fire up those beautiful girls.
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To be continued....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via City Sage via Isa's Little World
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To be continued? House in chaos. Painters into week 4. Clawfoot tub, now in my bathroom, still filled with vinegar/water soaking away stains from its former use in the garden. My kitchen is no longer the kitchen. Cut off a counter, moved ceiling lites, added chandeliers + 24" ceiling fan, harvest table added. Though painting debris litters the room it is potent enough, unfinished, to be called THE GARDEN ROOM.

A FREE HOUSE

Knowing he replaced windows Susanne Hudson deduced the old windows were going someplace, shall we say, unpleasant, in these 'sustainable' times? With Susanne's brilliance, instead of ending their life at a, literal, DUMP his windows are becoming GARDEN HOUSES, metaphorically, free.

#89 granite gravel creates crunchy delicious floors.

With rescued objects (aka free) and an exquisite eye for junking Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE is a statement in INTERIOR DESIGN too.

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Who knew junking & rescuing could be so GORGEOUS!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took pics in Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE.

GARDEN BY CANDLELIGHT

Don't let candlelight be missing in your garden.

If they look this good during the day unlit

imagine their seduction at night.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden. Now, off to buy lanterns! Don't forget thrift stores & repurposing light fixtures.

KISS: Keep It Simple Sweetie

How little can you do in your landscape and have it evoke in picaresque who you are? Splendiferous you.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this pic

GARDEN STYLISTA

Sure, it's pretty now but what will it look like in winter? In winter hang an old iron light fixture painted an incredible color.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from HOME a fabulous blog I discovered yesterday.

LAMPSHADES + LANDSCAPES

You've got to adore a woman who eyes a lamp, a regular everyday lamp, and thinks, I'll put that in my garden. Lamps happen to be another fetish of mine. Susanne Hudson's too, above.
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Under a tree and near a pond this lamp is on 24/7 and has been for years.
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The little glass jar? Fish food.
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Notice the clay saucer atop the silk lampshade? A practical detail.
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The fence? Susanne scoured books for which style to choose for her, over 100 year-old, home.
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Another BIG THING in this tiny little nothing of a garden pic?
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SUSANNE'S COLORS: green, brown, white.
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Throughout the landscape Susanne only uses green, brown & white.
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Tiny garden picture with lots to teach.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LANDSCAPE LIGHTING: CHANDELIERS

Susanne Hudson first electrifies her trees, below, when starting a new landscape. Why? CHANDELIERS ! Her chandliers, above, are on 24/7. Rain, shine, wind, snow, joy.

In Hogansville, GA last week, above, at Born Again Antiques*. I fell for this hot air balloon chandelier.

Hmm? No place for it in my landscape. Yours?

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OK, knock out pair of windows at back of my house, build conservatory, hang hot air balloon chandelier. And so begins another country song lament.

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* Born Again Antiques, 304 E. Main St., Hogansville, GA 30230, spottedsheep@hotmail.com, has no website, yet. This is not an ad for them. Please, buy the hot air balloon chandelier so I don't!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

FRONT PORCH IN A SUBDIVISION, FAST

Rare people implement landscape design quickly. What is quick? One year is a blink of the eye in the landscape realm. Jeri Farmer, retired marketing guru, moved in a year ago. In retirement? She owns, Le Jardin Blanc, with Susanne Hudson.

Jeri is hooked on white. With some blue. Susanne designed Jeri's garden overdosing Jeri's theme.

Jeri did something shocking. She implemented the plan, without wavering. And in a year has a garden life.

Landscapes, like people, are more defined by what they say no to.

"Men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art." Alexander Pope 17th century
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

STREET VISIT WITH A CLIENT LANDSCAPE

SHIPMEN invited me to a picnic yesterday. Thought you would like a few street views of their landscape. Path & perennial border, below, led them to hire me. Years ago.Don't you love this hint of entry, below, luring you further? SHIPMEN purchased their neighbor's backyard and extended their garden beyond the entry, above. A few steps further, below, and you see their gate.

A few steps more, below, and you realize the entry is an ENFILADE.Entering the gate, above, but before arriving at the 2nd gate, welcoming urns of geraniums. Notice the lattice walls, below, painted black. Perfect.

Sneaking thru their garden, because I could, and I knew you would want to peak into their conservatory, below. A hint of one FETISH.

SHIPMEN adore antique chandeliers. They're shipped home from across the globe.SHIPMEN use their conservatory for dining & plant propagation. It's not for show.


Leaving thru the same gate, above. These were only street views. Tempted to see more?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara