Monday, May 26, 2008

Outdoor Design and Living

I was standing in the check-out line at my local nursery ( Sloats ) and picked up a magazine and started flipping through the pages and noticed they printed two projects of mine.
On page 67 is an outdoor entertainment room with a fireplace, bbq, seating and trellis work and on page 81 is a quaint outdoor shower nestled into a pittosporum hedge.

The rest of the photos in this summer time specialty magazine issue are also pretty inspirational.

I especially liked the rustic sunken ‘cost effective kitchen’ featured on page 70 , It shows a sunken terraced cooking arena that looks easy enough to make over a few weekends as long as you have access to lots of rock.
I’m not so crazy about the amount of wood burning pollution that this design expels into the air if used continuously for wood burning *entertainment* but for using it for short moments of cooking I can rationalized its use when used in moderation.
Wood smoke pollution is extremely bad for our environment and the overall impact to our bodies is awful. ( see the American Lung Association and The Air Quality Board websites )

There was also a great piece of mosaic work shown on page 65.
The magazine isn’t crediting all the designers on all the photos so I don’t know who the artist is, but it does look like Jefferey Bales’ work. I greatly admire his craftsmanship and design work.

Cover of the Taunton Outdoor Design and Living magazine. Volume 3 2008

2 comments:

Michael said...

Below are some basic gardening tips to get you started on creating your dream garden

Gardening Tip 1. Consider your plants health as well as your own. Ensure you keep yourself well hydrated whilst gardening. As most gardening is done in the sun, involves physical labour and is very engrossing, it is easy to work away for hours on end without noticing the time flying by. Keep drinking lots of fluids and make sure you are wearing adequate sun cream and a hat. Your garden will only suffer if you are in bed for a few days with dehydration or sun stroke. Remember, skin cancer is still one of the top killers so dress appropriately.

Gardening Tip 2. Design your garden before you start digging. Your time and energy is precious so don’t start digging holes and planting plants without having a garden design first. You may choose to employ a professional garden design or you may just want to draw your desired garden on a piece of paper yourself, depending on your budget. Either way if you have a plan of what you are doing and what you want to plant where, you will save yourself many back breaking hours digging and planting unnecessarily.

Gardening Tip 3. Make a list of the tools and materials you will need. After creating your garden design, list the tools and materials that are required to create your masterpiece. You may need specialist equipment like heavy earth moving machinery that needs to be hired and booked in advance or you may wish to plant exotic plants that need to be ordered and grown specially. You don’t want to get half way through your project only to find you cannot get a piece of equipment on hire for 2 weeks. When this happens it is very frustrating and can sometimes hold up the entire job.

Deviant Deziner, aka Michelle said...

Hello Michael,
Nice tips.

I clicked on your link and it goes to a nice looking landscape design website located in the UK.
Is it your company ?
Quality design work.
Enjoyed the craftsmanship + attention to detail.

Michelle