One of the most common requests Molly Sedlacek, founder of landscape design and outdoor product studio ORCA, gets from clients is to rip out the concrete in their yard. Patios, walkways, steps—you name it, they want it gone. “I kept thinking, if everyone needs to remove it, why are we still specifying it?” says Sedlacek. Other than not being all that pleasing to look at, concrete doesn’t allow water to move through it (instead, it must be drained or sloped to a run-off point changing its distribution) or micro-organisms to breathe underneath it. As the earth shifts over time, it cracks and results in pooling, flooding, and bare and rotted roots. Sedlacek’s strong feelings against concrete is part of the reason she’s focused her company on permeable landscaping, or, in other words, setting hardscaping materials in a layer of sand and elevated joints that allow water to flow freely underneath and around them. 

What better place to showcase her ideas than her own Los Angeles home, which Sedlacek bought a little over a year ago when there was barely a garden to speak of? “The day I got the keys, I started excavating,” she recalls. Step one was to level out the lower yard, which stretches 30 feet long and around 25 feet wide. There’s also a smaller upper patio level that Sedlacek sought to turn into usable space. Ahead, she takes us through her outdoor oasis and shares all the ways hardscaping can appear just as organic as plants. 

Secure Your Slice of Paradise

Because her house sits at the bottom of a hill, it’s essentially a basin for all the water runoff in the neighborhood. Sedlacek knew she’d need a sturdy retaining wall along the exterior, so in lieu of using concrete, she patched together large boulders sourced from nearby Santa Paula. The permeable stone allows all the water to pass through it rather than gather in her yard.

When it came to ensuring privacy from the busy street, she first installed a steel fence (its slim profile promised not to soak up any valuable square footage). But to make the metal barrier a touch more stylish, she lined it with wide-plank rough-sawn redwood that’s stained with a fungus-based treatment that is chemical-free. 

Play With Local Clay

Saltillo tile used to line the upper patio, but the material screamed builder-grade, so Sedlacek replaced it with clay pavers made in Sacramento. When choosing materials, she likes to shop locally to limit the freight distance (particularly with bricks, given they are incredibly heavy). “Keeping the manufacturing in California is important to us,” she notes. She also worked glass blocks into the mix, allowing natural light to pass through into her office/studio space below. 

Layer in Cobblestone

ORCA stands for Oregon, California—the location is where Sedlacek’s parents live and work as landscape designers themselves. On a recent trip to their nursery, she scooped up some old cobblestone pavers. “I wanted a piece of Oregon in my garden,” she says. Usually, Sedlacek chooses a gravel that matches the tone of the pavers, but in smaller spaces like her own she goes for a contrasting hue. Here, she used a tan decomposed gravel that pops against the stone and the bay laurel around the perimeter. “The lighter material makes the space look bigger,” she explains. 

Mimic Mother Nature

In addition to custom chairs designed by ORCA, the space’s seating consists of thick pieces of coastal live oak courtesy of Angel City Lumber, a company that upcycles fallen trees in the L.A. area. The beams had to be craned onto Sedlacek’s patio and laid just so to make it appear as though they had fallen on top of the rocks like logs in a forest, but the extra effort was worth it. “We really like to do elements of permanence, just because there’s so many parts of a garden that are very impermanent, like changing plants,” she explains. Even Sedlacek’s dogs are a fan of the arrangement. “They treat it like a balance beam,” she says with a laugh.

While it didn’t apply to her own garden, carving out swales and water catchments is an important part of ORCA’s projects. The company tends to add swales (or long trenches) to spaces where the home’s foundation sits lower than the natural grade of the land, which, if nothing is done about it, inevitably results in poor drainage. “It’s a really nice design feature, plus we’re essentially celebrating the natural ones that appear in the landscape,” says Sedlacek. She also swears by drip irrigation. “It’s the most efficient way to get plants established,“ she adds. The system, which delivers H2O slowly to the roots, usually from above the soil surface, uses less water than a hose, and the plants have a better chance of survival.

The post The Patio Construction Material This Landscape Designer Won’t Ever Work With appeared first on domino.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor…unless that neighbor’s home exterior needs a paint job and a good weed whacking. Thumbtack recently teamed up with Nextdoor to survey more than 1,000 homeowners across the country to find out how much they value curb appeal and how it affects their neighborhoods (and neighborly relationships). Seventy-one percent of respondents claimed having terrible curb appeal would impact their relationship with a neighbor in at least one major way. 

So you leave your trash cans at the end of the driveway for one day too long. Will everyone on your street detest you for it? Probably not. According to the report, the biggest curb appeal faux pas are trash in the yard; an overgrown lawn; parking old cars, RVs, vans, or boats out front; and a home’s exterior needing a wash or paint job. Luckily, aside from finding another place to park any extra joy rides, all of these no-no’s can be easily addressed. Thumbtack’s data reveals it’ll cost you only $5,000 for a light curb appeal boost. Here are a few of those key updates it suggests for getting on everyone’s good side: 

Replace the Front Door

Is the focal point of your facade dragging everything down? Consider swapping your door for a new one, which will cost you an average $473 according to Thumbtack. When Australian designers Daniel To and Emma Aiston renovated their 1910 house, they enlarged the opening to make way for a supersize sunny yellow entrance that screams “happy to be here.” 

Trim Back Shrubs and Plant Flowers

Regular mowing is only one step toward a manicured yard. Give your boxwoods and azaleas that just-planted look by cutting any growth you don’t want, focusing on the inner limbs that need air and sunlight to thrive, like designer Luke Havekes did at his cozy cottage. Once you’ve got a handle on that, introduce new flowers (an average of $667). 

Add Outdoor Lighting and Stain the Deck

If you’re willing to invest a little more, make your house shine by installing sconces on either side of your door or a pendant light on the porch (approximately $947). A sleek-looking deck that’s either stained or painted will run you around the same cost, and when in doubt, stick to a simple black and white combo like Cassie Winslow’s dreamy Sacramento home. 

The post 71% of Homeowners Admit to Judging Their Neighbors for This Easy-to-Fix Yard Issue appeared first on domino.

Sixty feet might sound like a lot of wiggle room, but when that’s the width of your property, things start to feel tight fast. Fortunately for the couple who had bought this narrow plot in Venice, California, their architects, Cayley Lambur and Lucia Bartholomew, cofounders of Electric Bowery, weren’t phased by having to play a game of Tetris. For the house itself, they worked with Gaia Construction to create a hacienda-style, multi-building compound with loads of custom steel windows and doors leading to a central courtyard. Then they called on their good friends at Terremoto to help map out a landscaping plan that would make the most of the extra-long yard.

With assistance from Barranca Landscape, Terremoto prioritized lush, privacy-creating plantings and a meandering layout that connects to the indoors at various points so you don’t always feel like you’re stepping out into one big patio. “Within the property, you feel you’re in an entirely secluded, private retreat,” says Lambur. Take a closer look, below. 

Pick a Facade That Plants Can Shine Against

Travertine isn’t just for coffee tables. The architects used the durable material, technically a variety of limestone, as a tool to create continuity throughout the property: on the facade of the house, the large patio pavers, and even the alfresco shower. The pony wall is roughly 5 feet tall to allow bathers to still see the tops of the trees.

Make the Fireplace Pop

Originally, Lambur and Bartholomew were going to match the fireplace facade to the equally towering stucco perimeter wall (it’s 8 feet high, to be exact). But for a sandy-toned compound to really feel like an oasis, it needs a verdant contrast. While the olive trees in the back and large jacaranda tree in the front tick that box, Electric Bowery went beyond plants and pivoted to a green stone hearth.

Bring Out the Best in Your Pool Tile

Again referencing the landscaping, the architects clad the plunge pool–slash–hot tub (yes, you can crank up the temperature in there) in Kelly green subway tile. The low-profile, tiered travertine pavers around the pool line make it appear almost like an ancient natural spring, rather than a brand-new addition.

Create a Moment to Pause Indoors

In the hallway that connects the main living space to the primary bedroom and en suite, Bartholomew and Lambur carved out a spot to take in the garden growing just beyond the floor-to-ceiling window. Although there are no plants indoors—just a sliver of gravel—you’d think the area was completely open to the elements, and that’s exactly the point. 

The post This Cali Home’s Meandering Courtyard Encompasses a Travertine Shower and Green-Tile Pool appeared first on domino.

The post This Los Angeles DJ Climbs 88 Steps to Get to Her Patio Paradise—But It’s Worth It appeared first on domino.

The post From a Painted Pool to a Garden in the Sky, We Found the Best Outdoor Living Spaces appeared first on domino.

In the introduction of The Avant Gardens, editor and lifelong gardener John Tebbs refers to backyards as “outside rooms.” And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with outdoor spaces becoming an extension of our interiors, his point is that there might be too much focus on keeping them tidy instead of letting them be. Throughout the book, Tebbs’s compilation of out-of-the-ordinary gardens is meant to inspire a bit of horticultural rebellion at home. In this excerpt, he introduces the concept of the “anti-garden.” 

A Tudor half-timbered farmhouse reclaimed by nature, partly hidden under a festoon of climbers, and surrounded by planting that emerges at every opportunity: This was the vision for Jinny Blom’s “anti-garden.” 

Blom was asked by her client to help turn this 40-acre former high-input dairy farm into an idealized vision of a preindustrial landscape. The idea was that the space should benefit human and nonhuman residents alike, and that it should be gardened and designed in a way that prioritizes nature. 

The term anti-garden was used to articulate the desire to create a naturalizing garden: one that still holds the form of a classic English garden but behaves very differently. Somewhat appropriately, the design has been overlaid onto the existing hard landscaping; the addition of layers of soft plantings that contain many self-seeders creates the fascinating illusion of a garden reclaiming the built environment and adds an ethereal quality to the whole scene. The previous lawns were transformed into vegetable beds and a series of three meadows, each with a different mix of species.  

The planting here is clearly focused on supporting as wide a diversity of species as possible. Habitat and food sources for birds and invertebrates encourage an ecosystem that is bursting with life. This productive element is also carried across in other planting, with a focus on the use of herbs, fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants throughout. The garden extends out into the wider farm, with a woodland nuttery, an orchard, and fruit-rich hedgerows (some laid and some left to grow out), providing a diversity of habitats that run naturally into the sweet chestnut coppice that flanks the property. Even a number of dead espalier apple trees feature in the garden. They not only lend the garden a sculptural quality but remain productive in a way we do not typically celebrate: by providing a home for a range of invertebrates and fungi that can only exist in such environments. 

Poignantly, this wild-looking garden does not simply let nature run its course. A gardener works full time to ensure this balance between nature and garden is perfectly calibrated and maintained. They also make sure species competition remains mixed, thus creating the widest potential offering in terms of biodiversity. The relationship between gardener and nature can be a tremendously positive one—and as this garden proves, the collaboration can yield enchanting results.

The Avant Gardens, Amazon ($59)

Shop

“A Return to Nature: The “Antigarden” from the book The Avant Gardens – Visionaries and Gardens Beyond Wild Expectations”, pp. 232-237 © gestalten 2023.

The post Black Thumbs, Rejoice: The “Anti-Garden” Era Is Here appeared first on domino.

When it comes to making changes to her outdoor space, Carmeon Hamilton, the founder of Nubi Interiors and former host of HGTV’s Reno My Rental, doesn’t factor in ROI. “I’ve fallen so much more in love with my house because of the details I made for myself and not necessarily for investing,” says Hamilton. Over the years, she’s completely revamped her front yard and backyard, from building a deck with a pergola to carving out an in-ground swimming pool. Her expertise in the area made Hamilton the perfect person to offer insights around Yelp’s annual Summer Home and Outdoor Trends report, which dives deep into what users have been typing into their search bar over the past three months. Terms like fake grass, drought resistant plants, and patio enclosures are just a few that are spiking compared to the same time last year. Ahead, we got Hamilton’s thoughts on how to best take advantage of summer at home.

The Pizza Oven Setup, Two Ways

Shop

Ooni Karu 12 Multi-Fuel Outdoor Pizza Oven, Amazon ($300)

Searches for pizza ovens saw a 105 percent increase from March to April of this year, according to Yelp. Hamilton says you can take this outdoor kitchen upgrade in two possible directions: Buy a countertop version that matches your grill and/or home’s exterior for a streamlined look or build a stand-alone one with fire bricks and make it the focal point of your dining experience. “I have a friend who lives in Atlanta, and hers sits on the corner of her patio with lounge chairs and a coffee table in front of it,” shares the designer. “So you can serve on the coffee table while enjoying it as a fireplace as well.” 

The “Totally Necessary” Pool Detail

Shop

Brookleigh Outdoor Chaise Lounge, Wayfair ($1,450)

Shockingly, Yelp found that searches for pools have dwindled by nearly 13 percent, while hot tubs have jumped 28 percent since April of last year. But this doesn’t mean Hamilton questions building a pool in her Memphis backyard. She expects to keep her house in her family for the next 30-plus years, making the splurge a no-brainer. 

For the designer, the game-changing decision was adding a sun shelf with lounge chairs. “There’s something about being in the water but also having the sun on your body…it’s the most refreshing thing ever. It’s totally necessary,” she says. It’s a great in-between area when you want to immerse yourself without actively swimming, plus when friends come over with their toddlers, the ledge serves as a kiddie pool of sorts.

The Overlooked Bar Decor

Shop

Oval Wall Mirror w/ Folding Shelf, West Elm ($250)

This is the year of the outdoor bar (search interest has jumped 56 percent already). In addition to having a cart—or in Hamilton’s case a row of metal cabinets from Wayfair—to spread out your glassware and bottles, there is another key element you might be missing: a mirror. “A lot of people don’t consider hanging things on their walls outside, but you should absolutely focus on them to help it feel like a living space,” she says (Hamilton scored her round mirror for under $200). “Mirrors outside are also amazing for when you’re getting out of the pool and need to check if you got sunscreen everywhere.”  

The post The Entryway Staple This Designer Says You Should Absolutely Be Using Outdoors, Too appeared first on domino.

It used to be that everyone was working on their backyard, but the demand for a fresh kind of outdoor space has reached new heights: According to the just-published Houzz Emerging Summer Trends Report, searches for “outdoor rooftop terrace” have spiked 1,555 percent. 

While most outdoor rooftop terraces are reserved for cities where backyards aren’t common, they can also save space in single-family homes while providing access to the great outdoors in clever ways. 

For instance, in this Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home, a couple took advantage of their rooftop by adding a terrace off the main bedroom, cleverly disguising the radiator with a step. Plastic deck tiles from IKEA and potted plants totally transform the space.

Or in the case of a 750-square-foot apartment in Barcelona, having a terrace more than doubled the size of one couple’s living area. In the 800-square-foot outdoor hangout zone, a living wall mingles with trees and other greenery.  

Then there’s our chief creative officer Kate Berry’s previous outdoor space in New York City, which proves that you don’t need a sprawling yard to create an edible garden. Plant boxes and large terracotta pots helped carve out her own piece of paradise, even among the skyscrapers.

The post Forget Backyards—Everyone Wants This Type of Outdoor Space Instead appeared first on domino.

It’s official: Athena Calderone is leaving the Brooklyn townhouse she calls her dream home.  Over the years, we’ve gotten peeks inside the place as she painstakingly transformed it with her signature serene style, and, of course, incredible furniture choices. Between the memories she says are padlocked in her heart and the truckloads of pieces following her to the next adventure, the EyeSwoon founder has plenty to take into her new chapter. But there is one thing she’s leaving behind: a fully graveled backyard that is so chic it makes us want to ditch grass for good. Luckily, she’s gifted us with a 97-page e-book detailing all of the sources, suppliers, and inspiration from the townhouse, including how she pulled off the sophisticated outdoor space.

Calderone was apparently inspired by her many trips abroad when she revamped the yard. “I wanted a garden that felt soft and loose,” she says. “Like a European vacation, as opposed to something structured and architectural, which is common throughout NYC.” Together with Brook Landscape, Calderone achieved a quintessential Mediterranean feel by laying large Renaissance dolomite tiles from ABC Stone in the center of the area and adding creeping thyme in between the squares to break up the tonal monotony. They also mortared pebbles in between the cracks, making sitting and walking through that area a comfortable experience. 

In addition to the nontraditional hardscaping, Calderone brought in custom pieces like cedar stools and a bluestone coffee table crafted out of salvaged elements from the original yard to infuse the space with a bit of personality. For some coastal Italy flair, she peppered in vintage vessels, sculptural pedestals, and angular teak chairs from B&B Italia. We’re already envious of the lucky buyer who gets to make this city oasis their own.

The post Peek Into Athena Calderone’s Graveled Backyard Before She Sells Her Dream Home appeared first on domino.

It’s not news that buying a full-grown tree or laying down sod where there was previously dirt will cost you a pretty penny. The landscaping splurge no one talks about? The drawings. While some resources like Lawn Starter suggest the average cost for a landscape plan with sketches, a budget estimation, and details regarding plantings is between $300 and $1,500, we’ve seen other estimates that put that range at $700 to $3,000. And yes, that’s all before you pay the $50 to $150 hourly rate for your landscape designer. The initial expense is so shocking that it’s easy to see why most people put off the job altogether or go the DIY route and slap some mulch and a few raised garden beds in their yard. Luckily, Yardzen is out to change that. 

The company just launched its most affordable planning option yet at just $595. (Previously the brand’s lowest-priced offering that included both landscaping and hardscaping suggestions was $995, and its old botanical-only plan was $895.) So what do you actually walk away with? The Starter Package includes an illustrative 2D design plan including plant layout and hardscaping; two mood boards outlining materials, style, and greenery selection; one round of revisions; and a list of furniture and decor from brands like Serena & Lily, Terrain, Crate & Barrel, and more. 

While the package is geared toward renovators with a smaller budget and up to a half-acre lot size, it’s also ideal for those who want to DIY regardless and just need the visual inspiration to get started. In other words, you let them decide how wide the stairs leading to your new firepit should be or where to situate your mahonias in relation to the hammock. That way, you can focus on getting your hands dirty, which will save you even more than a few thousand dollars in the end. 

The post This Hidden Landscaping Cost Can Run You Up to $3K—We Found a Way to Cut It Down to $600 appeared first on domino.