Renovation Bling

 Yesterday, above, lighting bling was being installed.

 Over the breakfast table, above.

 Guest room, above.

 Jack and Jill bath, above/below.

 Master bath, above.

Master closet, above.
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This renovation has gutted an entire floor.  Blown it out too.
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Scrumptious part of my job, for decades, seeing the work of myriad decorators + architects.  Alas, I get to see train wrecks before completion. 
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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This project, took the pics yesterday, has been a joy.  Watching every phase develop.  Beautifully. 

Vanishing Threshold: Perfect Bathroom

Lighting is even designed to hang from the tree.  Garden nor room are too big.  Simple.

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Humbling, the talent designing this.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic from Velvet & Linen.  Years of beautiful interiors & gardens with Brooke & Steve Giannetti and they only get better.

Still Life

 Waiting, below, for the next event.  Quiet still life.

 Her old Dairy Barn coming alive for various gatherings. 

 Simple.   

Meeting needs.  Spare, with deep richness. 
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Abiding.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month.  Her sense of abiding is palpable.  A gift.  When she told me this inner most feeling I understood immediately.  Feeling atonement on my land. 

Well Placed Chair

The potager is hidden from view, above, but the chair hints at the mystery destination.
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Have sat here many times thru the years and in all seasons.  Having a bowl of cereal or lunch or perhaps talking on the phone.
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And to think, I placed the chair there for aesthetics.  Instead, it's lifestyle.
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Discovered the Well Placed Chair phenomena while studying gardens across Europe.
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Copy, it's a fabulous rule of Landscape Design.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken in my sweet garden last week.  Especially proud of this garden room because its backdrop is the rest of my subdivision.  And we don't want to see REALITY do we?

Don't You Want Beautiful Perspectives?

My property is under 8500 square feet, in a subdivision.  Do you know this from pics of my garden?  NO. 

 

 Instead, you see perspectives of my garden.  And they are beautiful. 

Everyday, all year.  Beautiful.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Have you made this choice, yet?  Why not?  A beautiful garden around your home is, guaranteed, a moat of grace around your life.
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Chinese snowball, dwarf weeping golden conifer, espalier apple tree.
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Did I mention pollinator habit 24/7 all year, low maintenance, reduced HVAC?  Remember, your landscape starts inside your home on axis with main window views.
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Why is gardening difficult for most people?  I think it's because much of gardening is counterintuitive.  Nothing difficult, just paying attention to many layers.
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"...men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art......"  Pope ca. 17th century.

Happy Flowers

Planted for its happy early spring blooms, kerria gave the surprise of engulfing a post of the Summer House this week.

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Good garden accidents.  Revel in them. 

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Don't know kerria?  

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When I began gardening nurseries were concerned about getting you the best plants for your garden.

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Nurseries now push patented plants ( preferably  advertised in Better Homes & Gardens or Southern Living magazines) with better profit margin.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

Pic taken last week in my garden.

Inside One Woman's Garage

Inside my garage, below, at the back door.  There is something new.

My bike.  2 decades on the wall, I took it off this week.

 I rode down the street to my friend Mary's, above. 

A perfect spring day. 
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Told a girlfriend about my biking.  She said she was a biker when younger and biking gave a sense of freedom & innocence.
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Putting words to my exact feelings.
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Pics of bikes in gardens instigated my bike coming off the wall.  Providence knew I needed its simple pleasure.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara 
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Doesn't every normal person have an antique china cabinet outside their backdoor?  It gets worse, chandeliers, mantels, garden chairs, antique garden tools, and more.  Hard to imagine I pass up a lot of good finds because of space.  In the deepest recesses of my mind it's known I must start having Garden Garage sales.

5th & State On Mary Bairstow

 5th & State came to Atlanta recently to visit her friend Mary Bairstow, interior decorator. 

 You'll like Mary's interiors but I fixate on her exterior.  The woman has Vanishing Threshold.

 I swoon, above, at the diminutiveness of these steps & matched in scale boxwood and asymmetry.

 A taste of Mary's interior, above. 

Is there any doubt, above, you are about to enter a fabulous home/garden?  None.  When every element of simplicity/function are achieved you know you are looking at the work of a master.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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5th & State took the pics.  Still pouting I didn't know she was in Atlanta, I would have invited myself along on this visit to Mary's magical home/garden.
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Did you notice the layers of green Mary uses in her garden?  Layers of green give you serenity & calm.

Small Lives Large With Axis + Focal Point

On axis with the doors, below, this tiny space lives large.  It has the potential for 3 more potent axis.

Purring at the formal lines + rusticity of plantings.
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At first I looked too quickly, thinking it was metal chairs.  No.  It's a bike & chair. 
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Don't you want to go inside? 
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That is Vanishing Threshold!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Don't forget the Landscape Design rule: COPY
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Pics via Modern Country, taken by Shootfactory

Foundation Plantings & Front Porch Opening

Typical USA foundation plantings, along with incipient pruning, below.

 The Cottage has good bones.

 I have sure thoughts, below.

Plants have been moved to a tapestry hedge, rails removed and The Cottage is sighing in relief, below.

Next?  Granite curbstones will be placed as a step at all 3 sides of the porch.
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Next?  Gravel arrives, a potager, boxwood, brick painting.
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Adore this process. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Garden a bit slow, The Cottage needed new windows & pipes.  All the copper had been stolen.  Roof is beyond its life expectancy but honored heavily for its steadfastness.  A penny saved is a garden installed.....
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3rd pic via Griege Design

Front Porch: Before & After

 Landscape Design after, above.  A bit of work so obvious no one thinks a Landscape Designer is needed.  Afterall, the builder & previous Landscape Designer missed it, below.

Did you notice a pendant light was added too?  Top pic. 
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics sent by the client from a jobsite last week.  She wanted to do this for years.  Her husband said, 'why do we need to do this?'

Technology In Personal Space

Home is newly wireless.  Do I want personal space used, below, for work?

 Spring arrived quickly/unexpectedly, 5 windowed walls surround the harvest table,  below.

 Mornings in my gown making calls (clients, contractors, vendors), emailing, blogging, birdsong, blooms, beloved Laskett in the chair beside me.

 Hours pass.

Need to leave for jobsites, administrative errands.  Putting away every bit of technology/work.
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Technology has changed but not how I take, for 26 years,  joy-grace-energy from being in this spot.
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The moat of grace I've surrounded home & life with, the garden, supports me emotionally & creatively.  So far it's working, honoring this new spot, clearing it afterward & using the Conservatory & other areas for work when I return from jobsites.
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Scoping new phones.  Make the switch from 3 ring binder, pics above, to connect calendars with my guys.
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Wish all this were 'done', want to think about & work in gardens.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara   
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Not a Luddite but if it weren't for gardening I would be slower updating technology.  Perhaps I'll have time to get pics from all 5 of those walls mentioned above.  Need to hurry, azaleas, camellias, kerria, hellebore, akebia, viburnum, rosemary.....all abloom. 
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Notice the gorgeous English antique ironstone soup toureen?  Found at a shop in Augusta, GA when I lectured there several years ago.  Alas, no lid.  The chandelier is ca. 1950's Italian, 1/2 of a pair, bought at an estate sale in Nassau Bay, Texas a couple of years before hurricane Ike.  Oddly, I was shopping with my Dad.  He hated that kind of stuff.  Lots of good memories.....