Winner of a 2018 Piedmont Design Award

The project initially began as a house addition for the homeowner’s painting studio and soon evolved into a more extensive home renovation with updated materials and large new windows and glass doors to invite the landscape views and light inside. With her children grown, the homeowner’s new lifestyle filled with art and entertaining was actualized alongside her vision for a sophisticated and harmonious contemporary design inside and out.

The landscape was designed to act as an extension of the interior, and as such provides visual appeal year-round with seasonal color and lush foliage. The rear deck was leveled to the interior living room producing an expansiveness that improves circulation, provides abundant seating for gatherings, and invites the views of the backyard into the home.

Crisp lines are repeated in the concrete pavers, corten steel walls, planters other structures throughout the garden, while the planting provides a blurring of edges to soften and add a playful counterpoint to the hardscape. Dappled sunlight dances through the mature Oak canopy into the garden throughout the day. The garden provides solitary refuge and inspiration while the renovated deck area allows for the vibrancy of family and community to fill her home.

Another important part of the renovation was updating the driveway. Instead of a tree box which is bulky and hard to work with, we worked with the landscape contractor who custom designed and fabricated a steel tree grate to surround and protect the existing mature Oak, enabling the creation of an additional parking space.

Photography: Agnieszka Jakubowicz