Happy 1st Birthday to Lou!

One year ago today, this little guy arrived:

He's one of the loves of my life and is just such a happy kid.

This is really what it's all about for me.  (yes, sleeping too ;) ;)

I love my wild little thing!!

Happy Birthday to Luke (Louie/ Lou/ Lulu)  We love  you.



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Progress Photos of a Client's Cool House

A very sweet client of ours lives in a home that overlooks the most beautiful stretch of woods near the Potomac...  Her builder (many years ago & has since stopped building) designed her incredible home to fit right in with the land.  The views are seriously breathtaking.  

{we recently had the red walls painted a soft cream and replaced recessed lights in the foyer with overscale glass orbs.  The front hallway acts as a gallery where our client displays special pieces they've collected over the years.}

Behind the house is a steep forested hill overlooking a stream.  The first time I saw it was in the Winter and you could see forever into the woods.  It was incredible!!! As you can see from the photos, now it's like being up in a treehouse surrounded by lush green everywhere you look.  We added a cozy little hangout area on the stair landing so our client and her family/friends could enjoy the view:

{Some of the wood in the home including the interior doors was a pink pickled oak while the floors were a red hardwood.  They really clashed and changing the floors wasn't an option so we decided to stain the wood black and paint the trim cream to unify everything.}

Throughout the home we also had all of the window mullions and doors painted black to frame the views and it's made such a difference!!

I love this quiet little writing nook off of the living room... A chair for the desk is being made now:

The photo of her mother is so beautiful...

Anyway, I'm off for the weekend but hope you enjoyed these little peeks into our client's home!!  



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Garden Plans!!

I  mentioned a while back that I'm working with one of my good childhood friends, Danylo Kosovych, to put a vegetable garden onto our property.   (Kindergarten photo below: Danylo is the blonde boy under the   1987-1988 writing and I'm to the left of the writing with the awesome mushroom cut.  ---Thanks for that Mom! :/   )




























Danylo owns Organic Edible Gardens and specializes in organic edible landscaping in Northern Virginia.

I love the designs that he & his designer John have come up with.  John's drawings are gorgeous!!

Our house is a cedar contemporary but I tend to like more classical gardens and have always loved the idea of a "garden with paths" so the design was a bit of a challenge.

{We've been working on relaxing all of the heavily pruned shrubs a bit so they look more natural...  This was the real estate photo from when the house was on the market.}

Here's another picture of our house before we bought it & added the patio:

The garden will be going to the right of the house along the fence and it will be as deep as the house.  This was a tough decision for us to make because it will reduce the size of our "playing field" and we're constantly playing soccer or football or something else out there:

...But we decided to give it a go because the yard is still going to be large enough to play football or soccer even with the garden.

Besides where we were going to put the garden, we also had a bunch of other decisions to make: raised beds or in-ground beds?  What should the paths be made out of?  Should we go symmetrical/classical or more casual/ meandering like the rest of the landscaping at our place?  My biggest fear was (and is!) that the type of garden I really love doesn't exactly "go" with the style of my home.

I collected a bunch of images on pinterest of gardens that I loved and of course, I was drawn to the more classic gardens.  Many had brick paths...

 {Vogue}

...or gravel ones:

All had a series of paths because I want us to be able to enjoy actually being "in" the garden vs. just being beside it.

{My friends' Brooke & Steve Giannetti's kitchen garden in the front yard of their previous house...  When we visited them, the first thing I remember noticing was the smell of lavendar as we walked up to their front door!!! Heaven!!}

I love the use of focal points in gardens.  In Brooke's garden, above, your eye is drawn down the path to the garden table, which looks like the perfect spot for working and relaxing, making the garden feel more like a "room."

I also  really love the look of gardens with gravel paths...

...But I'm a barefoot kind of person and I don't like walking barefoot on gravel so we've decided to try grass paths this year and see how they work out.

When deciding between raised beds or in-ground beds, I reviewed my inspiration gardens and realized that I was drawn to gardens that were edged in a plant or shrub, like this classical boxwood hedge:

I want my garden to feel a little bit wilder so we are going with boxwoods, but they won't be pruned into a square hedge like in the photo above.

When I saw this Country Living Garden (below) I really fell for it's structure yet relaxed look.  It's more rustic than many of the classical ones I've fallen for but it still has that symmetry that I love:

 Seeing a garden like this made me think that we could maybe try to combine the more classical gardens with  country ones and maybe make it work with my rustic-modern home.  Can we get away with it???  And the grass paths are just what we'll be doing. which I think really relaxes the look and will blend it better with our house.

And of course, one of my favorite local places to visit is Mount Vernon:

{One of the Kitchen Gardens at Mount Vernon}

Aaaaaaah!!! I love everything about it!!!!  It's so classic yet definitely more primitive and relaxed then some of the more formal European gardens.  I love how the grass paths look here.  

So...  after talking Danylo's ears off (I MIGHT possibly be the worst client ever!! hahaha) we came up with this:

The round spots in the center will be for potted trees because I wanted some sort of focal points in the garden... Right now I have some hydrangea trees but hopefully one day we can try fruit trees of some sort.  

The guys are building a teepee for the boys near their favorite climbing tree:

{This tee pee is insanity and I can't wait to have one!!!}

Here's a picture of the fence where the garden's going:

It's going in now so I'll be sure to post pictures once it's all planted!!!  I can't wait!!!  And of course, thanks so much to Danylo and his team for everything!!!  They were so patient with my craziness and are incredibly creative and know their stuff.   If you're in the DC-VA area and are looking for a kitchen garden or eco-friendly landscape in general, definitely check out the Organic Edible Gardens website & get in touch.  They're amazing!!!

                                                                       

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

To all of my readers who are moms--- I hope you had an amazing mother's day!!!  

Becoming a parent changes you inexplicably:  It's hard to explain, but I seem to feel both more and less.  Being a parent has relaxed me about most of life and helps put things into perspective.  So much that was a big deal, just isn't.   Yet I feel such an intensity of feelings too.  That feeling when you're holding your child...  it's definitely real and it's definitely both emotional & chemical.  It's such a strong palpable thing.  (And this is weird: I've realized that when I'm looking at one of my kids and thinking that he's so cute I need to squeeze him, I do this thing with my teeth where I sort of grind them.  A little piece of my bottom tooth chipped off last weekend!!! Seriously??!!! )  Yeah, probably too much.

I never thought the hi-light of my week would be a five year-old's soccer game.   (It really is... I sit on a blanket with the two littler ones and yell my head off cheering.  Yes, I'm THAT parent;)  

If I'm being honest, being a parent also makes me forget things, has squashed my vocabulary, and it makes me tired.   But anyone who is one, wouldn't ask for any of their brains back in exchange for a kid.  (At least on most days... I haven't hit the teenage years yet ;) ;)

One of my best friends visited last weekend and seeing her and her husband with their daughter was amazing.  My other best friend and my cousin (also my maid of honor) are both due with the first babies and I couldn't be more excited for them.  They're going to be amazing parents and I am going to grind some teeth when these babies are born!!  :( 

{Baby Hailey (my best friend's daughter) and Louie- our little guy enjoying a bath}

I also just wanted to share a bit about my mom- she's one of the strongest people I know and I love her so much.  She was a single mom for most of my childhood and always put me first.  She gives such honest, unbiased advice and is always there when I need her.  (and pretty much anyone else in her life.)

{My mom & me peeking out from behind... and my "bunny}

So, happy mother's day to all of you moms out there!!  Thank you so much for taking time out of your week to visit here!!

 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.