Also, not sure about you, but I don't have a lot of chances to mull over art design with people. Maybe if I had more exposure, I'd be all "Oh, I can see how our opinions diverge". Maybe my style would be more balanced and broader. Instead I'm rather committed to but a few things:
- Cleanness - I need a space to be actually clean-seeming but also visually undistracting.
- Colour - I like neutrals and wood tones but they usually don't cohere without deeper or brighter colours, IMO.
- Warmth - Cuz Canada...
- Architectural Intrigue
- Practicality - Show me some kind of ingenious, attractive space-saver any day...
- Elegance
- Light
Question: When you seriously change something up, do you prefer the idea of sticking with what you know (which is naturally appealing) or hovering at the margins of your edgy self?
At any rate, let's move the design to the outside world today:
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| Landscape Design of Tom Stuart-Smith courtesy of DesiretoInspire |
Kristin, what do you think of this? Um, simply that it is perfection. I love the controlled wildness. I can't say enough about the colour scheme - purples meet greens and yellows. The water feature is relaxing but also has an industrial feel. It is truly reflective. I think this space is beautifully proportioned given its size which is, admittedly, very large. I love its low profile, how it uses natural topography to find balance. I can smell the cultivated nature.
But what about you? What do you think? PS: Check out that link for some utterly spectacular photos.
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It's a lovely space, but I look at it and think two things: 1. No way in hell am I keeping that up myself. 2. What would I DO when I'm there? I need some chairs and a hammock added in there stat.
ReplyDeleteOK - I hear you about the furniture. I feel we could sort that out easily (I feel it's out of the photo!) And both you and Nursebennett showed lots of practicality by citing the upkeep. I kind of like to pull out weeds in clean flower beds because they stick out so terribly it's irresistible. But I can see how this would get old. I suppose I'd need a gardner! :-)
DeleteI think that's beautiful too. But, I already sense a trend in how you and I differ. I'd add about 10% more wild, more fronds, some unflowering grasses for example. Just as I would have added about 15% more texture and coloration to your interior. You are a minimalist, if a lush one, if I am correct.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting!! I can't get much more wild than this or I start feeling itchy :-) I think I may discover just how minimalist I am, as I continue with this series! Also, it's almost impossible for me to choose photos because every time I start looking carefully I find things I don't like. This is the kind of princess and the pea-ness that one can scarcely afford.
DeleteThe garden looks beautiful- calm and peaceful. I however, am too practical for this. Your looking at someone who sneaks kale, spinach and celery into her front flower bed. Trees in my yard must have fruit (except the pine tree we grew from a seedling). Most available space has fruit bushes, herbs and veggies... I do have some flowers, but they are mainly in the flower boxes. This year a second greenhouse was put in the back yard. I have 25 tomatoe plants of different heirloom varieties. I begrudge my husband's demands for any grass in the backyard, but I guess the grandkids need some running space. They do love to raid the raspberry patch when they come over, though.
ReplyDeleteBarb
Barb: You win on the practical!! (I could stand to see a gorgeous vegetable patch in there somewhere, btw.) I would LOVE to see your gorgeous garden. Show us a pic!
DeleteHaha, it looks pretty sad at the moment. With all the hot dry weather, The spinach and lettuce have bolted. I have already harvested the garlic, beets and some of the cabbage. Most of the cucumbers are made into pickles, and the berries are mostly done and living in the freezer with the gooseberries. Cherries have been harvested and made into jam. Perhaps a photo of my canning cupboard would be more appropriate...
DeleteBarb
OK, I love photos of preserves too!! :-) Gardens always look best in the spring. I've noticed that a lot of gardens here are very tired-seeming now (earlier than usual). I wonder if the rain has messed with things.
DeleteThe purple and yellow are lovely. Water is always good. Stone paths, likewise. For me, it's too industrial, too horizontal. I want more flowers, more fruit.
ReplyDeleteInsofar as neutrals and wood tones - yes, they're tied together best with a more intense color, but YMMV (in other words, pick your color). I like a good craftsman interior - ivory walls set off with a lot of wood tones.
Since you keep asking what we like, I'm shamelessly going to share what I like. :)
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/177610779031656938/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/177610779037683220/
Oooh, thanks for sharing those links. Off to look them up! And how interesting that you don't love it's horizontalness (I know exactly what you mean). That's what I do love about it. It's so fascinating to see how personal these choices are.
DeleteAs a horizontal query - were you raised somewhere that has rather a lot of horizon? (Farm country, plains country) I was raised in a very hilly place, I always feel like I'm going to fall off if my surroundings are too flat.
DeleteI was raised mostly in cities and there is very little horizon in any of them! I did spend 2 years in southern England in the country. I prefer hills, for sure. The horizon in Baie St Paul (which I took a zillion pics of on Instagram last month) is pretty well perfect for my money. But I am happy to have any sort of sky - prairies, mountains, water (but not tropical ocean so much, more mediterranean). We're so starved for scope here that the view from our rental patio is blowing our circuits cuz we can see some breadth of sky down a lane way.
DeleteGorgeous! All I can think about, however, is how much work it would take to keep it free of weeds here in the Deep South.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I didn't think about the weeds :-) You have a good point.
DeleteI have a wild, tumbling English cottage garden. Which I really love. Can't argue with the elegant symmetry of a formal French or Japanese garden, but it's a cold kind of beauty. For me to love a garden, it has to have a lot vertical elements, like literal green walls of privacy. I have outdoor rooms in my garden, with very different feels. One to disappear in with a book, another to sit with friends. I do love that color scheme: deep blue & purples against evergreen is a favorite of mine.
ReplyDeleteI have to concede that I hate minimalism. I like lush color, soft textiles & walls stuffed with books. I start to twitch if I am in a home with zero clutter and lots of perfect glossy surfaces. I actually feel anxious. I also hate great rooms, those huge open kitchen/dining/living room combo monstrosities. The enemy of privacy, peace and quiet. I like doors. And private nooks of space.
Your garden sounds fantastic. I love that idea of separating things into "rooms". Blue and purple with evergreen is also my fave.
DeleteI also hate great rooms! I like little, separated spaces with different functions. And I know what you mean about decor causing anxiety. I don't mind seeing a robustly filled room if it belongs to someone else (I'm happy for someone else's maximalism if that makes them happy) but I cannot stand it for myself. I get so anxious when there's clutter in my space.
You make a great point about being able to enjoy a different style - in someone else's space. I would love to be able to do that. I think most of my anxiety comes from the fear that I am going to accidentally mar that clutter-free space. With an errant crumb or something. It's the same feeling you get when using someone's bathroom & they have those bizarrely intimidating arrangements of guest towels folded into origami type shapes and you feel like you're imposing by actually using one to dry your hands. ~=o)
DeleteIt's a beautiful yard.
ReplyDeleteBut...my perfect yard has flowers for scent and for cutting and placing inside in bouquets.
Not that I have that perfect garden, yet.
I love that too but I feel bad cutting the flowers (even though I buy cut flowers all the time)?!
DeleteI love this! I love the colors and the combination of controlled wildness and the industrial-leaning water feature. However I would add a touch more unkemptness to it, not much, just a little softening with grasses or something a little less structured, a little bit of wooliness at the edges.
ReplyDeleteHi M! I hear what you're saying. I do love grasses (which I had in my own garden before it was destroyed). I will def put them into my new garden plan...
DeleteI am the lone dissenter then; I do like the structure of this garden and think it could use a little more even. This such a country garden and I think you live in an urban area? I would like to see some functional structured decking/seating area, more use of the vertical space as I assume there will be fences around the yard and perhaps your neighbors will not have the large trees and rolling hills in the example pic. The color scheme is nice but a bit limited, perhaps some more white and light blue for transition?
ReplyDeleteI replied but my comment didn't take! So take 2: I'm more on your side than you know. Were I to approximate this (and it wouldn't look the same except by "vibe" because the proportions of my land couldn't be more different than this), I would make the individual batches of flowers and plants of slightly more even height (and located in individual beds) so there would be less of a bed head look happening. But I wouldn't want things so similar that they'd look twee. My garden, a fraction of this size, will have 2 seating areas - a deck near the house and a patio near the lane way (which is the size that can fit a car, not that we use it for that purpose). I also have fences around 3 sides of my yard (they'll be new and horizontal wood). I tend to like only 2 or 3 colours because I don't like to be distracted. I would go for 1 more colour than this but I don't much like white or light blue. For me it would prob be medium blue.
ReplyDelete