Spring/summer 2008 garden tours

Click on this photo to see it in the note cards/prints gallery.Recommended upcoming New England tours

Newburyport 29th Annual Garden Tour & Plant Sale (Newburyport, MA) Saturday, June 14, 2008 10:00 am -5:00 pm, and Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Guilford Secret Garden Tour (Guilford, CT) Saturday, June 14, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Newport Spring Secret Garden Tour (Newport, RI) Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 20-22, 2008 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

South End Garden Tour (Boston, MA) Saturday, June 21, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

The Garden Conservancy’s Boston Open Day (Middlesex/Norfolk County, MA) Saturday, June 21, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires Garden & House Tour (Great Barrington, MA) Saturday, July 12, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Provincetown Art Association and Museum Secret Garden Tour (Provincetown, MA) Sunday, July 13, 2008 10:00 am - 3:00 pm

Camden House & Garden Tour (Camden, ME) Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Enchanted Gardens of Cotuit (Cape Cod, MA), July  17, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Private Gardens of the Kennebunks Tour (Kennebunk, ME) Saturday, July 19, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Mount Desert Island Open Garden Day Tour (Mount Desert Island, ME) Saturday, July 26, 2008 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Reading recommendation: The Salt House

by Cynthia Huntington

I picked up this poignant memoir not long ago, upon visiting Provincetown for the first time. In short order I fell under the spell of both the memoir and the Cape’s outermost beach town. In The Salt House Huntington revisits a distant summer, the third in a young marriage spent living on the Cape Cod National Seashore within the rickety walls of a beloved dune shack. She and her sculptor husband relish a nomadic life that brings them to the dunes in the temperate months to explore their craft, each other, and the awesome cycle of the natural world that envelopes them.

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Design snapshot: Classic carriage-house doors

dsscarriagedoors.jpgPerhaps these old doors once provided access to horse-drawn carriages. Nowadays they’re inactive. Time has taken a toll. A row of raised panels has been replaced with flat-panel substitutes. The astragal trim, which would have covered the vertical intersection between the joining door leaves, is missing. The hinges appear unhinged. Nonetheless, they’re handsome doors.

Natural light enters the narrow, glass panes that are in careful proportion with the wood panels. View of the interior is purposefully limited since this would originally have been a storage space. The hefty, field stone, exterior wall with deeply raked joints and arched top greatly contributes to the appeal. The warm toned stone nearly complements the forest green doors, in much the same way that cedar shingles would often offset dark green trim when the Shingle style had its heyday.

There’s plenty here to inspire the design of oversized doors today -- for a garage, carriage house, or creative outbuilding. Attention to detail never goes out of favor.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Slow food inspires Slow Home

slowhomelogoFooter.gifI only recently discovered Slow Home thanks to architect Bob Swinburne of Vermont. In a video introduction Founding Editor John Brown (an architect, real estate broker and Professor of Architecture at the University of Calgary) describes Slow Home as “a new design environment that will help you learn about Modern residential design and how to start integrating the principles of good design into your daily life.”

The site has a number of informative features that illuminate the rewards of good design and the failures of ill-considered design. The Design Studio category includes telling segments titled “What’s Wrong With This House?” in which Brown provides voice-over analysis and recommendations for drawings that he shares via video. The News category includes both pithy clips from other media sources and Slow Home announcements that pertain to residential discourse, events, and updates. For a quick overview of what to expect on the site for a given week check out the Slow Home Report videos.

Though the aesthetic of the work featured on the site is Modernistic, I don’t believe the thinking behind the Slow Home movement need be strictly associated with a specific style. Their site states, “In the same way that slow food raises awareness of the food we eat and how these choices affect our lives, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower each of us to take more control of our homes and improve the quality of where and how we live.” I believe such information could empower readers to pursue authentic design, no matter their aesthetic preferences.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

My first small retreat

NCplayhouseweb.jpgThis is my childhood playhouse out behind the Connecticut farmhouse where I grew up. My parents think it may have originally been a corncrib. Here, it’s looking its finest, once my mother made it her own after I was grown.

She landscaped it with dwarf English boxwoods, applied a trellis, and planted geraniums in the flower boxes. A fresh coat of paint on the exterior spruced up the board siding and awning windows. She knew the weathered, white-washed interior would continue to charm as does the picket-edged detailing on the gable end. She equipped the interior with a dry sink, twig furniture, and small garden tools, supplanting my Easy-Bake Oven and miniature tea sets.

At different times, it was, for both of us, a dreamy retreat where we indulged in leisurely summer days, carefree imaginings, and everyday growing.

Do you have a small retreat that speaks to you? It may speak to others, so let me know if you’re interested in sharing it.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast