Archives for October 2014

How to Create a Symphony in Your Garden

October 13, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Take your surroundings to another level by introducing the element of sound with ground covers, water features and wind catchers

Our gardens can be our best teachers. We learn about ourselves and our world from them. Our only prerequisite for this course is our ability to open our senses to the wealth of sights, aromas, textures and sounds that gently engulf us.

Even as I write this ideabook, sitting in my garden, I’m conscious of the sounds that surround me. With the squirrel rustling leaves on the forest floor, the cardinal singing high overhead, the owl vocalizing deep in the woodland background and the waterfall adding its syncopated cadence to the mix, my garden is alive with sound.

Let’s look at how to add another dimension to your garden by introducing the element of sound. You will enjoy your own private symphony when you stop long enough to listen.

Beautiful Noise: How to Create a Symphony in Your Garden

Filed Under: Blog, Home Care

Great Garage Storage

October 12, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

If you can’t park your car in your garage you’ll love this idea.

If you’re looking for a place to store holiday decorations, you’ll love this idea.

Filed Under: Blog, Home Care

NHL: Where players come from and how much they make

October 11, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

With the NHL season has started, we looked at the ever-changing league landscape and where its players come from. And then we looked at the top salary breakdowns from these nations. Check out the infographic below to see where NHLers come from, who the oldest player is from each country and who brings in the most money.

Filed Under: Blog, Hockey

9 Fun Ceiling Colors to Try Right Now

October 10, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Go bold overhead for a touch of intimacy or a punch of energy

I’m always on the lookout for creative ways to sneak fun color into a client’s home. It can be tough to pull off an intense color on all four walls of a room without making the space feel small, dark and claustrophobic, so I tend to prefer injecting high-voltage hues in smaller bits and pieces, or in unexpected ways. It’s no secret now that a bold ceiling color is a great way to set the tone in a room and draw the eye upward and around the space. But choosing the right bold color is crucial. Here are some of my favorite bold ceiling colors right now along with suggestions for how to make them work in your home.

9 Fun Ceiling Colors to Try Right Now

Filed Under: Blog, Home Remodel

Use The Force: Star Wars House

October 9, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Designed by the team at Korean architecture firm Moon Hoon, this Star Wars inspired dwelling is the beginning of a trend in Korea. This trend sees residents moving away from small apartments in the city, and into larger, detached homes in less densely populated areas. One quick glance at the home’s spaceship like facade, and you know exactly how it got its name. Geometrically, the Star Wars house has almost the same lines as the Sandcrawler from the beginning of A New Hope, but the exterior has a texture that is closer to the militaristic gray skin of the Death Star. Moon Hoon says that the house was designed for a young South Korean family looking to upgrade from an apartment to a small residential home with a garden for their children to play in. On the inside, Moon Hoon’s design is a little less evocative of the George Lucas aesthetic: it’s bright, open, and modern. It contains a few playful elements, like a playroom hidden behind a bookcase and a short slide between floors, but the white walls and combination pine-and-birch woodwork are otherwise pretty conventional. According to Moon Hoon, the Star Wars house cost $200,000 to design and build. Not a bad price for a home, let alone a piece of a galaxy far, far away.

Filed Under: Architecture, Blog

13 Great Ways to Say Yes to Plaid

October 8, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Give your room a dose of the unexpected with plaid’s classic lines in nearly infinite colors and materials

When I hear “plaid,” my mind immediately conjures up L.L. Bean flannel shirts, Scottish tartan kilts and very traditional rooms. Plaid patterns adorn dark libraries full of leather-bound books, offices that smell of rich mahogany, hunting cabins, overstuffed sofas in country estates where cocktail hour occurs promptly at 6:00 every evening … you get the idea. What’s caught my eye lately is the way designers are giving my preconceived plaid notions a twist, mixing the pattern into modern, contemporary, transitional and eclectic rooms. Here are 13 ways to freshen up this classic pattern.

Fresh Take: 13 Great Ways to Say Yes to Plaid

Filed Under: Blog, Furniture, Home Remodel

Wham! Pow! Bam! The Animated Home

October 7, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Add some toons to give your home a one-two punch of fun

As people gear up for New York Comic Con on October 9, fans are digging out their costumes for the four-day conference dedicated to all things comics, graphic novels, movies, television and more. More than 100,000 people will immerse themselves in a fantasy world for four days, but for some homeowners, the fantasy is a daily reality. In the rooms below, designers and homeowners have provided some comic relief for their interiors.

Wham! Pow! Bam! The Animated Home

Filed Under: Blog, Home Care

Good Fences, Good Neighbors — and Good Views

October 6, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

See-through vertical fencing connects a yard with its surroundings while keeping children and pets safely inside

Good fences make good neighbors, Robert Frost instructed. Good fences can make even better neighbors when they keep the vistas and sight lines open, even as they establish a boundary. The fences below masterfully set property or area limits while maintaining permeability. In place of an imposing, solid mass of wood or stone, these modern constructs allow outsiders visual entry into the space and enable those inside to view the surrounding landscape, maintaining a relationship between outside and in.

While many of the fences here are custom jobs, they demonstrate that materials in a range of prices can be effectively used. The key is the spacing of the verticals. They can be left wide open for border plants to wander through, or placed more tightly to keep children and pets in and deer out. They can be anchored belowground or set into low walls. When done properly, they become a sculptural element all their own, blending style and function.

Good Fences, Good Neighbors — and Good Views

Filed Under: Architecture, Blog, Home Care

A secret weapon for winning any negotiation [infographic]

October 5, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Trying to find the magic formula for winning negotiations?

If you haven’t given anchoring a shot, The Gap Partership created this step-by-step infographic explaining how it’s done, so you can go into your next confrontation more confidently than ever before.