Showing posts with label Porch-Deck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Porch-Deck. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

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.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

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.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

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.

Friday, March 1, 2013

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.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

How To Create Vanishing Threshold

Gardens begin inside.


Looking out the window, above/below.

And, looking in the same window.
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Landscape Design is more than plants.  It's Vanishing Threshold with your interior, exterior & life.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Love the layers of this project coming together.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Lattice Columns

When money isn't there for impressive columns.  Charming is good.
Lattice at the ends let's you see out clearly yet have a nice amount of privacy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Never seen lattice used as columns.  And isn't that the hunt, something new & good!  Pic via Old Long Island.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A Bedroom View

From the chair, left, a view across the new deck into their Wild Wood.


This room, above, is an almost complete addition to their master bedroom.

A portion of the new deck, above, with a door from the master bedroom.
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She hired me for this view.  Should an arbor with swing be placed?  No.  It would stop the view from the bedroom.  Instead, a low round table with 4 adirondack chairs stained the color of her kitchen cabinets.  Views into the Wild Wood are the focal point on axis.
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Of course we've redone the entire garden.  Simply.
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.  Deck will be stained.  She was kind letting me take pics her house is a tornado of renovation.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

How To Make These Windows More Fabulous

At her bluestone terrace, below.  Inside is the kitchen.

Soon, French doors will open onto the bluestone terrace.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday at a jobsite.  Notice the gap in the ferns?  Saw the culprit eating them.  Her dog!  Unrepentant.
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When I told her the windows HAD to be French doors she smiled and said it was validation.  Her thoughts exactly.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Patio Table Not To Use

Mostly, I design square & rectangular patio/deck/terrace tables.  Easily placed next to a wall, rails or the edge of your concrete/stone/gravel/wood.


A pair of matching square/rectangular tables is most flexible.  Use separately or pushed together.
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This patio seems to have neighbors looking in?  I would use shutters or custom lattice for more privacy.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic House of Turquoise.  Ironically, I was in a garden yesterday needing a Round table.  I love knowing what the exceptions are!  Can you imagine how much space a round table would waste on this patio, above?

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Monty Don on Garden Design

"All our buildings fascinate me and have influenced the structure of the garden more than anything else.  I have to relate the garden to the house, and the house to the garden.  The view from a window will influence the positioning of a pathway and a doorway at the end of that path.  I have a primitive need for symmetry and balance."  Monty Don


Excellent advice.  Vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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I never tire of learning how others design landscapes.   Asiatic jasmine groundcover, above.  Mother Nature smiles.  Thick in areas yet still spreading in others.  Pair of columns on axis with the front door.  Can lights are placed in the porch ceiling away from ceiling fan blades.  Who wants that spinning shadow pattern!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Chinoiserie Porch Rail

Miles of historic Chinoiserie


porch rail.
 A sweetness of scale.

Doesn't block the eye sitting in a chair.
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Oh , I get it about 'code'.  But this sweetness of scale is a joy.  Built as a hotel, 1897, when the train north only came as far south as Clyde, North Carolina.  More pics from Skyland Camp for Girls, ca. 1917.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Front Porch

At the front door, below, you're already understanding a great deal.
 This isn't a place concerned with 'decorating' or 'style'.
Those have existed here so long, and simply,  they are mundane.  This family is concerned with feeding the spirit, paying attention to nature, exercising the body, enriching the mind & connecting friendships.
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Built in 1897 & operated as Skyland Camp for Girls since 1917 this remains a family endeavor.
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Lucky me, I was able to go to their 95th anniversary celebration last weekend.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Garden Room

Romance of windows opening inward.
 Small, not even  8' x 12', it is perfection.  A nurturing space
 A place to draw, deeply & richly, inward into yourself.  Read, nap, lunch.
And the garden beckoning.  Palpable.  A room knowing what the soul needs.
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Garden & Be Well,              XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Front Porch

A disintegrating brick, too small, front stoop when I arrived.


Covered, lighting, doors, stone terrace, new paint colors, columns, iron rail, ceiling fans, furniture.
   The view, below, has been there, ignored, for over 3 decades.
Now it's honored, and lived in.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken this week at a past client.  Her house & garden the most perfect HORRENDOUS before.  Of course she's going to be a before/after story.  Best part is how it's changed their lives.  Literally.  House is amongst many in a subdivision near town, yet it lives like Piedmont forest. 

Monday, July 23, 2012

Cottage Awning


Built during a poverty cycle, ca. 1930, this awning is wood. 
Yes, steps/terrace are bluestone.

 When the cottage was built, a century ago, this was the afternoon sun porch.
In love with the proportions (of all parts of this cottage).  They reek of age & fabulous.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Took the pics last month.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Hydrangea 'Queen of Pearls' on the Front Porch


Front porch garden. 
Hydrangea 'Queen of Pearls', still in its 3 gallon pot, slipped into a tall classic iron urn.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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A Dirr selection from McCorkle Nurseries.  Susanne Hudson's front porch.  Queen of Pearls was a no brainer with her green-brown-white trinity of colors.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

How To Create Exterior Simplicity

The hedge is brilliant.  Vine on the risers is more brilliant.
Topiaried green meatballs are fun.  Terra cotta on the table?  Perfection.
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Notice the lack of pattern on the textiles?  Be careful with exterior textile pattern.  Very careful.
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Many interior rooms look onto this view.  Without going inside I know it's an obvious Vanishing Threshold.  Without going inside I know the owners.
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How little can the landscape have and hold together?  Whoever 'tossed' out this much simplicity is good.  Very good.
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Low maintenance, weekly blow & trimming 2x/year. 
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Choose a color theme.  It should flow from the interiors. 
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.  When I worked at a nursery one assistant manager was incredibly talented at displays.  BUT, we would always beg him to stop.  He would create the above, BUT keep going.  On his off day we would cleanse the abundance. 

Monday, April 9, 2012

Somethings Gotta Give A Secret Garden Path

Can you see the flagstone path below?

 This type of path is also good at making small lawns appear larger
 This house is perfectly the movie house, Somethings Gotta Give, except, below.
Front entry step is too narrow & out of scale with the home.
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This is what I've been hired for.  Their house is perfection in all other details.
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Did you observe this house was a 1950's ranch?  IT WAS.  Architect blew it up & out.  Will ask permission to get interior pics next time I'm on site. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.  Will change a few of the foundation plantings.  They were installed to help sell the house.  Over planted and need constant pruning otherwise they will mature bigger than the house.  Not a novel issue.   

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Exterior Design & Scale

Pretty now the Chinese snowball is young.  It's bottom will be pruned away once the blooms finish.  This Chinese snowball is growing into a tree. 

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken in a client garden yesterday.  Always greedy to show off with decadent blossoms there are 2 more Chinese Snowball nearby.  They will be pruned too.  Viburnum macrocephalum, easy. 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Blossom Boxes By Steve Eaton

She needed something at her gravel parking court.  (Tara Dillard's, Queen's Pot, of course.  A pot so fabulous it can remain empty.  Do all of your pots pass this test?)
Mostly, she has Steve Eaton of Blossom Boxes plant her urns.


 She wanted a gate leading into her woodland, fabulous.  But it needed another Queen's Pot, this time on a taller plinth, above.  And, it's on double axis.  More another time, (miss priss) forgot to get the other axis pic.
 No sun reaches her front door, Blossom Boxes keeps her pots always lush & green. 
Another pot, in her backyard, above.  Blossom Boxes stayed true to his name: pansies, violas & dwarf snapdragons.
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Met Steve Eaton over 20 years ago.  Have seen him in gardens & flower shows ever since.  Had him in an episode on my TV show. 
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I thought you should know such a man, Steve Eaton of Blossom Boxes, exists.  That there is a world where men plant flowers & girls design gardens for their daily bread.  A world, they know, is their own Camelot.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken in a client garden last week.  Steve Eaton, Blossom Boxes,  770-337-8840, sceaton3@yahoo.com.