Farmhouse Kitchen

A real farmhouse kitchen.  

The island, above, is an old dresser with detailing applied to  the back.

She removed a wall between table & kitchen.

The cafe curtains win a Garden Oscar.  Beyond those curtains, inches, is their driveway, Funeral Home parking lot, and, ta-da, a Funeral Home !
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Sky & tree canopy are all you see.
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Perhaps the solution to your garden eyesore is inside your house.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite, same garden as previous post.  Yes, she made lunch, blueberry mini-muffins, pimiento cheese sandwiches, chicken salad, fresh fruit......iced tea mixed with lemonade.  And, I got the story from him of how he met her when they were teens.  They're grandparents now.  The story began when he was a bagboy at Piggly Wiggly.
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You did notice the rug under the island?
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They've asked for a Chicken Coop, Pole Barn, Pond & a few other delicacies.....
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How to Use Heads in Design

Got heads?

They're for

exterior, and

interior.
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Have you noticed a formula for your favorite interiors & exteriors?  Not into formulas?  No worries, formulas are nothing more than Shopping Lists!  Now, I have your attention.
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I've always been drawn to interiors with heads & ......
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In my garden is a decades old collection of broken heads.  Most were a $1.
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Top pic from same home/garden as previous post.  Bottom pics Nicky Haslam, via Cote de Texas article.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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More than heads, bodies too.  And urns with plinths.

Stairs

Did your eye already pick up the salient fact, below?

Risers & steps are not to code.  Now.
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Lovely to walk history, ca. 1900, feel the gait.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken this month, same home/garden as previous post.

Dining Room with Antebellum 'Feel'

The bones of this house 'feel' antebellum.  

Though it's ca. 1900.  

                                               Architect & owner knew what they were doing.

                        Doors, molding, ceiling height, scale & flow redolent of an earlier era.

Dining room, above, flows into the front parlour, and also the central hall and kitchen.
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It's great drama between these rooms with function, paint color, and natural light.  A treat to see a tapestry of color instead of the ubiquitous mono-color shown in most magazines and catalogs.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from same home/garden as previous post.  They've only lived in this home since last August.  It's obvious I'm running all cylinders to balance the interiors with an equally detailed rich-in-history garden.

How to Copy Interiors into your Garden

She will have a stone roundabout with historic French church gargoyle setting atop a plinth of granite, at its center,  in her garden.

Quickly took pics in their home and realized, once I returned home & saw the pics, her Gargoyle Roundabout will be shaped like the central portion of the chinoiserie pattern, below, and outer line of the massed platters, above.

This happens all the time, designing in the garden and seeing validations inside the home.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics same garden as previous posts.  She is also the queen of rugs, picking & placing.

Front Porch: Chain Rail

Lunch, below, this week.  Every home seen from the chair I sat in was a century old and white clapboard.  

Front porch columns each have iron rings, below, for chains lost to history, I've already designed their replacement.

With their 'swag' to mach the arch, below.

Will copy a pair of the columns, deeper into the garden, as entry to a garden room with enfilade from the front sidewalk.
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Repetition.
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Notice the power lines, bottom pics?  The bane of my existence for a mature camellia I wish to keep and limb-up into a tree.  They will contact the power company to see what can be done.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics same garden as yesterday's post.

Central Hall: Front & Back Foyers

Built in 1900, they're the 3rd owners of this home.

Beautiful & tough hardware, below, on the door is original.

Aside from the scope of the land, an acre, a few large camellias & trees the grounds/garden do not exist.  A  30 acre Pecan Orchard in a state of Chekhov-meadow-reverie flows from the back garden .  Did I mention the entire length of the driveway abuts the Funeral Home parking lot?
Central hall, below.

She adores, and showed me a pic of  P. Allen Smith's front garden at his cottage.  Indeed, perfect, but I'll add heavy doses of Loutrell Briggs at Mrs. Whaley's Charleston, SC garden too.

We walked the grounds, had lunch on the front porch, walked the grounds again.  Her husband was able to come for the 2nd round of walking the grounds, and lunch too.  He loved my idea of Bahama shutters at the pavilion, and asked if they could be 3/4 vs. full length.  Fabulous.  Yes.  Love teamwork, makes me better.  A lawyer, he likes doing carpentry.  As I left he was already heading to Craigslist to begin the shutter search.
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Back door foyer, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday on the job.  I helped with their Macon, GA garden a couple of years ago, it's in Southern Living this year.  Who knew a move to Jackson, GA was in their future?  You will be seeing more of this home.  She did every ounce of the interior decorating from colors to furniture to art to rugs to knocking out walls.....

Let Simplicity Serve Your Needs

There isn't a lot here yet the magic is intense.

Narrative.  Simplicity.  Choices.
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"What plant should I put here?", I'm asked often.  It's not the right question, in return I ask, "How do you want to live?"
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic The Vintaquarian.  Remember this trinity: Narrative.  Simplicity.  Choices.  What is your garden, today, answering?

Orange

When my father built a new house he let me, age 7, choose my carpet color.  Burnt Orange.  I had white walls & white furniture & white lamps.

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Loved growing up in that room with the light of Galveston Bay pulsating off the walls.

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A huge red bottle brush filled the window with hummingbirds.

Have never used Orange again.  Happy reigns when I catch glimpses of it.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Colorado Homes & Lifestyles.  A client, from Holland, already had orange accents in her garden when she hired me, hers is a Faded Burnt Orange.   Her garden is on tour this month, will try to get there for pics.  Since, obviously, pics of Orange are absent my arsenal!

Framed Views & Historic Hedge

Every home should have numerous framed views.

This historic hedge, rare in USA, has a Friendship Gate pruned into it between neighbors.

They had dinner & shared champagne last nite celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
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What makes a historic hedge, aside from age?  A mix of plants: pass along plants, bird seeded plants, wind seeded plants, no invasive plants, tiered layers, something coming into bloom throughout the year.  If next to meadow, historic hedges are maximum pollinator habitat.  No watering, no chemicals, no fertilizer, hi density, low density, poof-viola, maximum pollinator habitat.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday.

Nicky Haslam Said "...

Generously stuffed with bons mots.

"Flowers play an essential role, partly to enliven the rooms and partly from the sheer pleasure of thinking up new ways to utilize anything growing in the immediate surroundings.  I love massed, untidy bouquets of things in season, and try to keep the room's color scheme in mind so that the arrangement doesn't shriek, ", Look at me."  "  Nicky Haslam.
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Great theme for a garden party, Please Come to a Garden Tea & let us be Massed and Untidy on the Tea Olive Terrace.  (Which friend could possibly refuse this invite?)
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Odd week, days beginning in the tub, oodles of epsom salts & hot water.  Why move a huge English urn + plinth?  Whatever.  Have enjoyed the morning soaks with Nicky.

Color: Bedroom Before + After

Last weekend, below, in my bedroom.

Color change.  Vintage linen ceiling & walls were too dark for north facing windows.

Now, Benjamin Moore Sundress walls & White Dove ceiling + trim.

via

Calm, above/below.  And the template copied.

via

 Ordered headboard & sofa, below, from Susanne Hudson.  Sent her the 2 pics above, she mailed fabric samples & asked dimensions.

Not quite 'after', above.  Still playing with art, lamps, pillows, tables, chests, etc.  A Sheraton sideboard with tv is opposite the bed.   Who knew a bedskirt & rug would be the most difficult to find?
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Chuck, top pic, has helped me for several years.  His job, appraiser, lost to the economy, along with most everything he owned.  Yesterday he closed on a house.  With hard work & a good attitude this man has done it.  Happy for him & so proud.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Gregory's Paint & Flooring is my Benjamin Moore dealer.  Send all my clients there.  It's as if you've hired an experienced, trained assistant, that cares.  No, they have not paid for this infomercial!  I appreciate their service.

Choosing Color for a Fence & Fixing a View

May Day, yesterday, at one of my jobsites, below.

White fence?  Not happening.  Made the space smaller & became a focal point.  Detracting from the focal point of the home.

Now, above/below, a blend-into-the-background Benjamin Moore Alexandria Beige.

See the stop sign, roads, & home across the street?  Of course you do.  Ouch.
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Soon evergreens in a tapestry hedge, with fruit trees, will create a garden with grounds and no offensive views.
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Can it get better?  Yes, using existing evergreen shrubs needing to be moved anyway.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Pics sent from client.  Lucky children, my last May Day pole was in the 60's.

Potting Table: A Template

 Outside my Conservatory is a space asking, just last week, for a potting table.  This, below, is the template.  

No different than putting interior rooms together.
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Perhaps once/twice/year will need to use it for potting.
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Will style it with ivy topiaries for the house.  A pair of lamps.
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Zinc top with Benjamin Moore Alexandria beige legs.
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Now, on mission at the thrift stores.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Habitually Chic.  Of course there is a slight slope to the space, need to cut/fill the area.

Proscenium Design is Your Desire

Porch, turkeys, garden, a new trinity.  This is my job, below.  Do you see what I've done?  

Designed the garden as a proscenium to life.  

What does that mean?

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Garden is fabulous, marvelous, incredible 24/7 with little effort and a stage set for what life tosses.

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Look at the top pic again.

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It's taken from inside the house.  A snapshot that looks like a photo shoot.

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Not an accident.

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This garden is ready for Garden & Gun.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics sent from client last week.  She KNEW the turkey pic would THRILL me !!!!!!  Don't know Garden & Gun magazine?  You want to.

Interior Shutters

Too much sun, she sent me a link to exterior shade cloth.  

Too expensive for something to degrade in weather, look merely satisfactory when new, pass quickly to tacky, even faster to dreadful, and finally get-rid-of-it.  Why spend the money?  Worse, why waste the time?
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Perhaps, interior top down/bottom up Duette shades inside.  No go.  Her cats would shred them she said.
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Shutters?  Hers would have to be bi-fold due to space.
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She hasn't responded!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Cote de Texas.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: Williamsburg, VA

A perfect distance from the house.  The Tea House.  

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's home in Williamsburg, VA.  She spent April/October here yearly.

The scale is exquisite.

Knowing a bit about the depth of her philanthropy the scale and sweetness of her home speak much of her character.
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Her gardens are intelligent, potent in simplicity, narrative, formality, rusticity, line, axis, Nature.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month while I was lecturing in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

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.

Choose the Right Doormat

Doormats with writing?  No.  Front door, home & garden are the trinity saying, 'Welcome'.

This doormat, above, recently sold for over half a million pounds.

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Footnotes

• Property of a Lady
  
  Provenance: 
  The temple stone was removed from 'Brackenhill', an early 20th Century Tudor Revival house in Crowborough, East Sussex. From 1935, Brackenhill was the home of William Murdoch Thyne (1878-1949), a Scottish civil engineer working in Ceylon between 1915 and 1937, and later in Jamaica. Thyne was responsible for the design and execution of many large reservoir projects including the raising of the Labugama Dam in Sri Lanka and the filtration works for Colombo. He was a Vice-President of the Ceylon Engineering Association and is recorded as having used elephants for the lifting of heavy masonry at Labugama. Thyne and his wife, Lilian, returned to Brackenhill in 1937 prior to departure for Jamaica where he was appointed chief engineer and member of the water commission at Kingston. During the Thynes absence from home in 1938-39 it would appear Brackenhill was let to Oscar Mackrill, a solicitor, and his family. Mr. Thyne continued living at Brackenhill after his wife's death in 1949 and died in Crowborough in 1952, whence the house and temple stone passed into the possession of the current vendor's family.

More about this sale, here, from Bonhams.com .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via Bonhams.  Major take away?  When the finder of the doormat died, his home was sold, doormat included.  It was the new owners who won the doormat lottery.  One of the best garden stories I've read in years.   For all  Lucia fanatics a new chapter must be written.