Serenity and Peace in Water Features

The serene sound of a fountain can provide mesmerizing relaxation. Like white noise, but better. Close your eyes, in close proximity to a little fountain, and be lulled into a wonderful respite zone. Even indoors, this is an effective relaxation element…outside the birds and breeze contribute to the joy. 

Pets reap benefits too! Kona gets a refreshing sip from the fountain!!!
At night, that same fountain offers gentle water sounds and an interesting sculptural effect.

Social distancing and isolation – these two popular terms that have defined so much of our daily living in the last several months and imparted a negative connotation. They paint a picture of living more at home – alone and even “out-of-touch” – literally.  All of my childhood I heard the phrase “ne touche pas!” My uncle’s favorite, for sure! And now I hear it in my mind all the time. Don’t touch the shopping cart, door handle, people’s hands, “ne touche pas!” and if you do – wash and sanitize to a fare-thee-well!

Yet, on a positive note, this stay safe – be safe – living at home has spawned creativity to maximize that environment and relieve stress. It means, more than ever, expanding your outdoor options from placing a pair of chairs and tiny table on a previously unused, diminutive urban balcony or adding a palatial pool in your backyard…there are many options in-between depending on your circumstances and means. 

Our cousin in Tucson has created a lagoon effect with the dark bottom and mosaic trim. an oasis in the desert.

Water features are an amazingly therapeutic design element. Water suggests cleansing. It is refreshing and renewing. Water has promise. It can also suggest escape.

The Calgon add campaign of decades ago resonates today for those of us who remember…”Calgon, take me away…Lose yourself in luxury” The escape and indulgence of a relaxing soak in a tub. The gentle buoyancy relieves tension and encourages rest. It often suggests leisure. It is a luxurious, pampering exercise.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yjGPgs0_S0  Here is a video from the 70s to take you back to “Take me away…” Come back Calgon!!! We miss your commercials now more than ever!!!

Taking that refreshing water scene outdoors is one of the most popular design projects trending today. From DIY to major construction people are discovering ways to escape without leaving home. Water features provide virtual escapes and actual refreshment for many people seeking that added dimension, diversion and sought-after pleasure in their lives.

A friend in Phoenix has tricked out her pool with fabulous landscaping, spectacular iridescent glass tiles and LED lighting – the luminous colors an be changed with her mood!!!!

Swimming pools, a gorgeous grotto, lap lane, all afford the luxury of submersion and even exercise.

We’re speaking with Diamond Spas of Longmont, Colorado this week on behalf of a client who is interested in a partially above ground swim spa!! https://www.diamondspas.com/swimming-pool-spa-collection/custom-pools/stainless-steel-swimming-pools/

The sound of a small water feature to a creek-like landscape addition in your yard – the projects are many. This DIY guy created what he fondly calls “Covid Creek” – a project that took several weeks of focused creativity and back-breaking work all prompted by being stuck at home. The results are a magical mountain stream flowing beneath the trees in their modest-sized backyard. A creek-like water feature or pond can offer a respite to sit beside, dangle your toes and imagine scene far from the confines of our limited environs. You would be amazed at what beautiful illusions can be accomplished!!!

A babbling backyard book built as a therapeutic DIY project during the COVID confinement.

Such multi-sensory water features offering the touch and feel of water, gentle sound and visual beauty are powerful design elements to exercise the senses. Our senses suffer with redundant stimulation.  The reclusive limitations of recent months have us stagnating with sameness.  It’s the variety if stimuli we are so accustomed to experiencing that keeps things interesting and alive. Moving water is one of these exceptional sensory stimulations. 

Organic garden sculptures – chiseled granite boulders with re-circulating water – meld with the landscaping.

Whether a tiny fountain or in-ground pool…even a galvanized livestock tub – investigate your options. Regard your environment and study your spaces to select the best design elements for your setting. 

Nature’s Design Elements

Neighborhood covenants, zoning, physical practicality, budgetary constraints…all enter into whether it is realistic or desirable to save vegetation when clearing land for development. Carving around existing  growth can be a tedious and costly addition to a project. But there are times when it is a design asset – an imperative even – to the over-all setting and effect of the scene.

Saving trees when designing a built environment is a challenge that often pays off.

A spectacular backdrop to this seating area – the decades old tree is the focal point.
At night – well lit – the same tree towers with dramatic illumination in the darkness as the rear “wall” of this seating area.

Raping acres of woods for barren subdivisions and adding back newly planted saplings the caliper of a quarter is unfortunate and takes years to satisfy. FHA requirements were the tell-tale token of bringing green back after a bulldozer’s brutal removal of all plant-life on a property. That lanky stick standing in the center of a dirt patch, that might get sod or seed…or rock, was a pitiful attempt to give back to the environment.  However, in addition to broad-sweeping examples, individual decisions to saver rather than remove can prove valuable.

Years ago, when planning a patio expansion and exterior kitchen, friends brought the plans to me for a quick check before committing to the design from the design/build contractors that they had engaged. The new patio plan meandered along nearly the entire back facade of the house.  With all the exciting kitchen layout and bar, seating areas and dining space, I instantly focused on the fact that their beautiful red-bud tree was gone – not in evidence on the pans!  I exclaimed about it and was told that they were told it had to go. That was about 10 years ago – or more, yet it still stands today having modified the design to include a tree-well in the patio and opening in the proposed high-ceiling patio cover.  The stunning multi-truck tree thrives, in the ground as it had for decades, and climbs skyward through the opening spreading widely toward the second story of the home. A wonderful, living, sculptural element, in the space. Good save!

Warmer climates invite the indoor/outdoor melding of living spaces. We all try to achieve them despite bitter cold transitions and near, if not complete shut-downs “off-season.” But in the tropics, outdoor living spaces become remarkable dimensions to expand living.

Sculptural trees are powerful elements viewed from inside and outside.

This past week, that situation came to mind as I enjoyed several examples of incorporating nature into the design scheme. Yes, landscape design is just that. Landscape architects do just that. They design exterior spaces with organic material. But what I was feeling recently was two complimentary things – one that designing in and around existing growth is so satisfying and in some cases, the living plant material becomes the architecture – not merely compliments it.

In addition to their sculptural beauty, they add balance, scale and a canopy over the exterior rooms.

This past couple of weeks, we have see the results of 2 years of preparation and construction which transformed of a piece of partially vacant land into a seaside resort. Several key palms and a couple other key trees  were saved and hundreds more were brought to the site to complete the design. The towering new trees showed signs of shock with their dried frond tips  – but will surely survive.

What has been a foreground of some landscaping and virgin jungle ,with houses beyond, was bladed and terraced last year in preparation for a new project.
Buildings and pools appeared, jungle growth was removed and a few key organic elements retained.
The recently finished scene is dramatically different – incorporating specimen trees throughout the property into the new plan.

When landscaping becomes architecture you know you have crossed an exciting line. What I mean by that is to have the growth become walls – to have the vegetation read as though structural framework.

This terraced dining patio is framed by massive bamboo and other large trees and plantings. They are substantial enough to read like screens, if not walls, framing the space.
From a canopy of growth, strings of LED lights are suspended as though from the ceiling – a ceiling of branches over this enchanting outside dining venue.

A tree house is another example. The tree is the structure – the framework to begin the additional elements that create a suspended room.

This entertaining and imagination-spurring book by Philip Jodidio is worth investigation. Here. find extraordinary examples of trees as the structure of other amazingly fanciful spaces!

By observing examples in your world, you will see, when designing around and in concert with the natural landscaping, the effects can be dramatic and of great value to the scene. On your next project, consider the possibilities of saving rather than removing – incorporating and celebrating nature’s design elements!

Effective Staging & Improvments Clinch the Deal

We staged a house this week.  We TRANSFORMED IT! Wonderful clients for several years, who I regard as friends too, called to say they were moving out-of-state and they needed to quickly  get their house ready for sale. So many things that we had planned to do and more, deferred due to life getting in the way, all of a sudden got put on the fast-track to get finished in less than a month!

When you think of staging a house for sale, you might think of a fall scene scented with stove-top cinnamon sticks warming in a pan. In the spring, as it is now, fresh flowers with floral fragrances wafting on breezes through open windows and doorways.  We had the floral bouquets – just a couple – as centerpieces in the dining room and another game table in the family room.

But in order to really make this house attractive to the prospective buyers – millennials and their families – experience tells me that we needed to install profound punctuations of exciting  new trendy finishes and colors.

I critiqued the kitchen for its old but good-as-new solid surface countertops with a dated, tell-tale sandwich of speckled forest green in between the bull-nosed edge of solid white. The cabinets were plain slab birch yellowed by time, with hand-crafted wooden handles. To place the emphasis where we would get the most “bang for the buck,” we kept the countertops, refinished the cabinets and added new mosaic tile and paint accents. 20160424_162546

A few years earlier, we had stripped adjacent identical cabinets in the dining area and re-finished them with multiple clear-coats of conversion varnish. In place of the two-screwed wooden handles, we installed three small conical-shaped  brushed stainless pulls. By adding the third holes at each, between the existing two of the wooden pulls, the detail looked intentional and contributed to a modernized interpretation of the cabinet design.  We now finished the kitchen cabinets to match which had been  slated for the same improvements, but put on the back-burned until now. P1140111

The end wall of the kitchen, with a large pass-through opening into the dining room, leaving no significant wall space for art or other accessorizing, was the perfect element for a dramatic, eye-catching full-wall treatment. A mosaic of horizontal glass tiles in earthen blacks and beiges balanced the warm cabinets and maple flooring with a strength, pattern, interest and glossy bling.  The same mosaic tile wrapped the room filling the back-splash  between countertops and upper cabinets. 20160424_162701

Outside we painted the garage doors, wall sconce and patio trim with a new organic neutral mushroom green shade. The landscaping was enhanced with new river rock and a couple of large ceramic planters were placed by the front entry with mature plants creating a sense of establishment. The plain concrete entry porch was tiled with a dark earthy porcelain continuing up the step and into the entry foyer replacing the burnt  orange tile that had been  neglected from the decades old original finishes. 20160424_164027

Additional planters were purchased to scatter about – but a more effective idea to have a strong showing of them at the end of the pool anchored that setting with a stunning blue ceramic colonnade bursting forth with brilliant contrasting yellow Celtic Broom. Massing things can often create more powerful statements rather than sparse, weak distributions of the same.

The master bedroom suite had been remodeled a couple of years prior. Pre-fabricated white melamine closet components were replaced with custom fabricated birch closets and cabinetry to continue the theme of the original cabinets in the main level of the home. Updated granite countertops, new lighting and mosaic tiles jazzed the dressing scene and brought order for the young parents running this busy family.

Staging a home requires thinking about clearing the clutter and dressing the scene. But beyond that, looking at more powerful elements to repair and update can make an enormous difference in the appeal to potential buyers. This was evidenced by the comments that we overheard specifically about the more dramatic installations like the new mosaic wall, welcoming entry tile and effective row of blue patio planters that we decided to employ really clinched the deal.