On Houzz: Stone Steps in Waiting

Recently on Houzz here, below.

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Modern renovation to vintage home.

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Seriously good modern.

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Made me laugh.

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Why?

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Happens all the time with new architectural construction.

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Tunnel vision harking back to the old map makers, "Beyond this point there be dragons."

With long term clients, they learn to finish 'certain' landscape items sooner rather than later.
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How do I know?
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They tell my general contractor, "Don't tell Tara, we will not do XYZ yet but please put in those 3 stone steps so she won't be so upset."
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This beautiful old home with new renovation, above, went international with its 3 gorgeous stones 'not complete'.  In Tara Talk those stones are jewelry-for-the-landscape.  Setting is complete, stones are bought, please let the jeweler do their work.
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Best part of this home/garden?  Nothing has to be 'undone'.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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 For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

How to Tame Trouble

Met a new client last nite with a no-mans-land of trees/ivy/invasives/drainage ditch/weeds.  Its ownership 'looks' like it could be their property or their neighbors.

What to do is quite easy.

An entry & path will instantly take ownership and tame the trouble.
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Clearing invasives, controlling ivy/weeds, planting desirable understory trees & etc... will take a bit more time.  Happily, now there is a road map.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Exciting times, their brown brick home with brown shutters will soon be WHITE !
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Pic Litchfield Hills, lost provenance of photographer.

Poverty Cycle Into the Music Room

The library across the hall, previous post, is moody with northeastern light.  The music room, below, hums in southeastern light.

Eastern light, below, in the mirror, southern light, window above.

The garden view, below, is one of my proudest achievements.

I took the garden, a century old, to its Southern roots in time & place.  Using the Poverty Cycle.  Looking in the window, below, seen, above.

Tara Turf to the foundation, granite curbstone step instead of green-meatball-foundation-plantings, drifts of daffodils as-if-they-were-always-there.
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Plenty of areas to play & show off in this garden, and I have, but without using the Poverty Cycle the garden would lack soul, character, integrity, & have too-much-uneducated-ego.  Of course you've deduced, this is my ego, above.  This is a portion of the front porch, hence, double ego!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same garden as previous several posts.
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Ego for doing-the-right-thing makes me unemployable to the largest design/install companies across USA.  Why?  It's all about sales.  Are you beginning to understand the prevalence of green meatballs & foundation plantings and, and, and?
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Oh my, a little Puppet Barbuda this morning.  Uneducated ego?  Testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch-get in fast-get out fast-sign my contract-pay me every month.  Sad, you'll pay later in lower house value, higher HVAC, increase maintenance expenses, poison  ground water with fertilizer, destroy pollinator habitat, and worse, harm your spirit with ugliness.  

Garden Stairs

All new construction, below, constraints galore.  Never knew steps & under-the-steps could be this joyful.

Use lattice or ceiling boards under the step treads?  (1 of 87 questions about the steps!)

Across from the steps, below.

Repetition wins again.  Paint color too.
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Lattice is special order, Magic Man added a strip for more privacy.
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A new room & deck were added above creating wonky space below.  We should all be so lucky.
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The space is grand enough to be used as a Foyer in addition to the Outdoor Kitchen we created.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Hired a professional to shoot this project in January.  Leaving the Foyer yesterday I said something about keeping a green table because of the green urn blah-blah.  Beloved Burt wasn't there.  Apparently Burt said the exact words only hours earlier.  Finally, a Tara'ized Burt!!!!