CasaSugar

Would You Stick This Fellow in Your Garden?

CasaSugar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:00:23 -0700

GiggleSugar recently posted this zombie lawn sculpture, which she claims would make your garden absolutely perfect. She writes, "Just imagine the following little bucolic scene. You wake up, make some tea with honey, sit down in your lawn chair and stare at this thing's face while you enjoy your plants and flowers. Sounds like a perfect Saturday morning!"

Maybe this is GiggleSugar's idea of a great garden addition, but would it improve your view?

Sandra Bullock and Jesse James Buy a Historic New Orleans Victorian

CasaSugar — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:00:25 -0700

From Angelina and Brad Pitt to Nicolas Cage, New Orleans is becoming a popular place for celebs to settle, the latest transfers being Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. The pair quietly snatched up a historic Victorian home in New Orleans's Garden District for $2.25 million back in June. The 6,615-square-foot, five-bedroom, 4.5-bath home, known as the Koch-Mays house, was built sometime between 1860 and 1870. It retains many original Victorian design details, including ornately carved marble mantels, carved columns, large plaster medallions, shadow molding, and beautiful ornamental cast ironwork on its exterior. It's no surprise Bullock looked for historical details when doing her real estate shopping: the French Southern bistro she owns and designed in Austin, Bess Bistro, is in a historic building with tin ceilings and hand-painted floors. And although Austin won't be a far trip for the couple, they're guaranteed to find a good Creole shrimp meal in NOLA. See interior photos when you read more.

View 7 Photos ›

Source: Flickr User alykat

On the Market: San Francisco Multi-Story Mansion

CasaSugar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Need some space to spread out in San Francisco? Then check out this four-level home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. The home has already dropped a few million dollars over a few weeks, and is currently offered for $9,995,000. While this is likely way out of most of our buying ranges, it's still fun to window shop.

The Georgian home's exterior features neo-classical ornamentation and a red brick façade. Over the home's four levels you'll find formal living and dining rooms, breakfast and family rooms, five to seven bedrooms, five baths and two half baths, fireplaces, a study, a wine cellar, and in true SF style, a "meditation room" (formally an au pair's quarters). Outside, you can drool over the gorgeous views from the garden roof deck, or dine al fresco on the terrace or near the rose garden. If you're tired of taking the stairs, you can also take the elevator.

This home was designed and built 99 years ago by architect Nathaniel Blaisdell, who designed numerous homes in this neighborhood. It was selected for the 2009 Decorator Showcase, a fundraising event for San Francisco High School, and the photos reflect the different styles of the designers chosen to decorate each room. Tell me which room is your favorite when you read more.

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Source

Cool Idea: Color-Coordinating Your Plants

CasaSugar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:30:31 -0700

When I volunteered at the SF Victory Garden, I was inspired by this small garden bed, which provided a fun twist on an edible garden. Using scarlet runner beans and rhubarb chard in the bed, the gardeners matched the colors of the two vegetables; the red of the chard stalks matches the red of the blooming bean flowers. While color-coordinating flowers is nothing new, using vegetables as ornament is a very neat idea. The matching colors are eye-catching and pretty, but the fact that these plants are also edible makes them doubly appealing.

For some ideas on coordinating veggie colors, read more.

Try:

yellow chard and yellow crookneck squash
red cabbage and Russian kale
strawberries and rhubarb
cauliflower and bok choy
eggplant and purple top white globe turnips

Headline of the Day

GiggleSugar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:00:00 -0700

Man Vows to Fight Garden Gnome Arrest Threat

I'm not a huge fan of gnome lawn ornaments, but this following news story is absurd. Englishman Gordon MacKillop was woken up in the middle of the night by policemen who served him with a notice for "placing a garden gnome with intent to cause harassment to Mr. John McLean," his neighbor with whom he'd had land disputes over the years. The police told him that the solar-powered gnome, dressed as a policeman, was intimidating potential buyers of McLean's home and that if MacKillop didn't get rid of it he could be arrested and prosecuted. Click here to read more about how this notice was received.

Coveted Crib: A Lush LA Garden

CasaSugar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:45:13 -0800

Actors Brenda Wehle and John Carroll Lynch recently shared their backyard garden retreat with the LA Times.The Sherman Oaks, Calif., home's garden features a lovely pool, grapevines that form a canopy over a breakfast patio, an infinity pool, and native plants.

When Wehle and Lynch moved into the home four years ago, they were confronted with a less than thrilling prospect for outdoor living, including a leaky, outdated pool that was surrounded by concrete, a tall wall along the property line, and a monoculture, water-heavy lawn. Working with Marilee Kuhlmann of Los Angeles-based Comfort Zones Garden Design, the couple transformed an uninspiring lawn and pool into a serenity-filled lush garden. Ornamental grasses, Mediterranean olive trees, native shrubs and perennials, and low-water, low-maintenance ground covers replaced the lawn, while an infinity swimming pool took the place of the leaky old one.

Check out a few of the pictures below, and then read the whole article here.

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Source

Primer: Plants That Deer Don't Like

CasaSugar — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:30:00 -0700

I recently showed you some tricks for repelling deer from your garden without pulling out your rifle. But probably the simplest way to keep Bambi away from your beloved plants is to choose plants that he doesn't find palatable. To begin, you should certainly avoid planting hostas, lilies, tulips, hollyhocks, impatiens, sunflowers, crocus, daylilies, lobelia, phlox, rose, and yews, which are deer faves. Here is a list of plants that should be safe from being Bambi's breakfast, lunch, or dinner:

Ornamental grasses. Try astillbe, baptista, bleeding heart, catmint, bloody cranesbill, dusty miller, evening primrose, ferns, foam flower, foxglove, iris, lavender, monarda, nasturtium, peony, salvia, santolina, and yarrow.
Strongly scented herbs and plants. Try sage, lemon balm, monarda (bee balm), chives, chili pepper, garlic, mints, rosemary, thyme, wintergreen, and Russian sage.
Prickly, thorned plants (except roses). Try cleome, holly, boxwood, butterfly bush, Colorado blue spruce, cotoneaster, honeysuckle, Japanese maple, magnolia, Russian olive, viburnum, barberry, and purple coneflower.

Check out Northern Gardening and UGA for more plants that deer tend to avoid.
Source

Casa Craving Challenge: Crave Worthy Statuary

CasaSugar — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:41:31 -0700

This week I confessed that I've given in to statuary in my garden. A lot of you also admitted to loving the look of a little gnome or gazing ball in your azaleas, so for this week's Casa Craving Challenge, I figured I'd ask you to round up your favorite garden statuary. I'd like you to hunt down and bookmark garden statues, gazing balls, twinkly lights, and ornaments that you'd love to have in your veggie patch. Show me all of your fab finds by creating Casa Cravings and tagging them with the phrase crave worthy statuary. I'll feature the results next Wednesday, April 16. Please let me know if you have any questions.

For a list of online home stores to try, read more.

Amazon Home
Bed Bath & Beyond
CB2
Crate & Barrel
Design Within Reach
Etsy
Gump's
Ikea
Jonathan Adler
Lekker Home
Linens and Things
Macy's Home
Pottery Barn
Restoration Hardware
Room & Board
Target
Urban Outfitters
Unica Home
West Elm
World Market

Source

Trend Alert: Quatrefoil in the House

CasaSugar — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:00:59 -0800

Domino market editor Jennifer Condon has a fun slideshow of products with a quatrefoil motif, an ornamental design of four lobes or leaves resembling a flower or four-leaf clover, which you know from Van Cleef & Arpels's "Alhambra" jewelry pieces (and Heidi Klum's knock-offs). Her slideshow was inspired by this image in a 1971 House & Garden story showing readers how to create a Moroccan mood with quatrefoil stencils.
I've been seeing this growing trend of quatrefoil design in the home in plenty of other places. So, I figured I'd show you where it's taking shape. To see my finds, read more.

Source

New Uses for Old Mats

FitSugar — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:00:00 -0700

There comes a time when your yoga mat has seen its last downward dog and you may not feel that throwing it away is the best solution for you (or the environment). So what's a girl to do?

Gaiam.com has an awesome list of fabulous ideas of uses for that old yoga mat:

Tree ornaments -- just use holiday cookie cutters! – T.C., Arvada, CO
Dog & cat dishes stay put. Cut to size required. – A. O., Trumbull, CT
Donate to homeless shelters as sleeping pads. – R. N., Minneapolis, MN
Use an exacto-knife to cut out shapes, letters, numbers, etc. Perfect for little fingers. – C. M., London, ON, Canada
While taking my dog to the vet or groomer or just for a ride with the top down, her feet would scratch the leather going around curves. So I decided to take an old yoga mat and roll it out over the back seat of my car. Viola! She is comfy and can do her own version of Downward Dog without scratching my seats! – L. S., Powell, OH
Drop off your old mat at an animal rescue group. Most of these places need soft, durable mats, rugs, towels, & blankets to line crates. The poor helpless and homeless animals need comfort too! – P. O., Highland Park, NJ
My children love play dough! This mat will be excellent for play dough and other messy projects because it will make cleaning up a lot easier. – F. F., Owings Mills, MD
I have used an old mat in my wood working shop to keep wood from slipping on my workbench while using power tools on them. – M. C., Lee's Summit, MO
Line kitchen shelves - glasses won't scratch and hold better to the sticky surface. – J. S., Madison, WI
Smother weeds in your garden. Just place the mat over a section of your garden and the mat and the sun's heat will smother weeds and their seeds. Then when it is time to sew your seeds just remove the mat and move it to another spot in your garden. – J. M., Woodbury, CT

There are a lot more so read more

Cut the mat into squares and use them as "bases" while playing baseball with the kids. Easy to carry and easy to clean! – J. C., New York, NY
Mat gripper - place it under an area rug for no-slip gripping. When you're ready to work out, just roll back your rug and presto - yoga in an instant. Best used with a sticky yoga mat. – S. F., Brooklyn, NY
I made one of those garden knee pads to kneel on by cutting the mat into even sections and binding the ends with twine. – K. F., Manassas, VA
Wash, then cut apart to use as drawer liners. – C. L., Mason City, IA
Cut it up to make mouse pads. – L. E., Fort Worth, TX
Grommet the corners and suspend the used mat from the ceiling of a parking garage (such as at the yoga studio) to prevent door dings. Keep that centered, calm feeling going! – F. H., Los Angeles, CA
Use it on the beach instead of a towel. – A. B., San Diego, CA
Shred and use for a backyard jungle gym, at the end of the slide. Ooh, comfy landings! – R. N., Minneapolis, MN
Grip pads to open jars. – A. F., Grapevine, TX
Cut to size and use as foot pads for the bottom of furniture that is on a wood or ceramic floor. Glue on pieces with a non-toxic adhesive. One mat will go a long way! – E. W., Tampa, FL

Have your own ideas? Share them in the comments section below!

Still want more ideas? Then check out Gaiam.com.