WOW

Stunning! It really looks like it's been there forever and is an integral part of your beautiful property. Well done. You have a great sense of style.

Thank you Robo, I will go look those up. Then have to see what is left to buy at the garden center when we go up Wednesday... would lavender work? always loved it..

Bonnie, the highest compliment , thx!

ETA -- I forgot to say, the other reason I hate posting now is that, within a year, the gate, the fence, the table, the chaises, will all have turned the grey of my cedar siding! I cannot wait for that.

I always look forward to your posts and photos, and this one has met all expectations! I feel I am living vicariously through your many projects! What I admire the most, is your ability to marry style and elegance with comfort and livability.

I was actually thinking about lavender...how do you feel about bees near the pool?

Gorgeous, Mtn! I love the flow of it all. I am a sucker for stone and especially flagstone paths. Love how you have achieved a seamless look to it all. The rhododendrons look great.

You could try salvia, which might be an annual for your zone. Or sedums, amsonia, marigolds would do well in sunny, dry conditions and you may still be available.

Enjoy your summer there! You must be thrilled.

Love lavender ~ Hate bees~ Not really hate~Just a phobia~Giving them somewhere to go and hang out away from the action is a good thing.

Spectacular! Thank you for sharing.

I love how the rustic-feel of the fence works so well with setting and keeps it all from being too suburban backyard pool. It looks so great!

I have a northern-hardy lavender that I neglect terribly but which keeps coming back for me every year. It's starting to bloom now. I haven't noticed that it attracts bees--it might, though. It's one of my favorites in my yard.

Everything looks great together. I love all the cozy seating places. The pool looks fabulous.

Mtn, absolutely breathtaking! You have your own little slice of heaven. In one of your posts you mentioned succulents, but I need to ask if you've heard of Lunaria. It's common name is Honesty or Money Plant. I tried growing it almost every summer when I lived in the midwest, even though I had always heard it grew best on the east coast, esecially on the beaches. When dried, it resembles white silver dollars on a stem, hence the term money plant. I stiIl see it sold dry. It looks best when grown sporadically among other plants.

mtnrd, that came out so nice! Well done!

A nice low litter companion to the lavender could be some kind of spurge (yellow and green plans below), although spurges do have toxic/irritating sap so I wouldn't plant them if you thought people would be blundering into the bed or breaking off stems.

What a relaxing atmosphere! Ah, to live in Maine, that's been my dream forever.

Don't put Lavender near the sidewalk, they attract every stinging insect known to mankind.

Mtn, thanks for the heads up! They were due (maybe overdue) for a reno -- last time I was there, I was disappointed in the condition of my room. Clean but tired looking. Now I want to go...I'll just tack it on to my vacation at your place.

I know Sue, I had heard that it was getting quite tired. The new décor is lovely, I hope the spa is good! BTW, do you have email enabled? I think I do?

It is perfect!

You mentioned succulents in one of your posts, there are a lot of really great Sedums you could plant there along with the lavender.

Love it!

How about Dwarf Mexican Sage? They're so soft, I always have to touch them when I walk by!

Ok Mtn, now that you have shown us this can we have a sneak peak of the boho attic space? That was a fun project for us to work on! ;-)

Beautiful space!! I have at least 100 lavenders in my yard, including along paths. Yes, they attract masses of bees. That's the same for my salvias, rosemary bushes and every other little blooming flower. They are fine along paths, as long as you have enough room to walk between. The bees aren't going to sting you unless you grab them or step on them! (I stepped on a bee in a lawn once, and it stung me. Otherwise, I get up close and personal, weeding around my flowering plants, and the bees pay me no mind.)

Hi RN,

I thought i had posted all of the interior?

The third floor originally had 1BR, and storage space. We put in a big dormer and put in 2 new full bathrooms, and added a second bedroom (the girls' room).

Here it is;

Somehow it, maybe it's all the white ... it makes me think of Greece and not Bohemia!

(BTW I traded the rug out for a larger size .. and the round wooden ottoman has a glass top, not a cushion, and is used as a table)

The door to the right is to their bathroom

I think we went a little too pillow happy. I did not arrange them this way - the cleaning person did

Love their bathroom. Double sink to R, toilet to left, shower behind me

My daughters did this on their sink!

This is a picture of the roman shade on the window! sort of

Shame I dont have a better one of the shower -- Glass arabesque

Lovely! What's the flooring in the bathroom?

Thank! BR And BA have new wood floors, painted white.

Beautiful home and grounds, you've made great choices and made it your own. Brava!!!

just stunning! you've done a tremendous job, once again

I love it, especially the bathroom. Mtn, I don't even know how to enable email...I did just go to my profile and made sure messages "from anyone" are allowed.

It's just as great as I imagined. What an amazing place to be together with your family and friends. Lucky you!

what bossyvossy said :) And I'm an early riser, so I'll walk your dog and make your coffee and breakfast before you even think about getting up.

Wow! How do you ever leave that gorgeous place?

I really love it!

Are those rock stepping stones as the flooring around the pool area (flooring may not be the right word).

Are they comfortable under bare feet? Are they slippery? Smooth? What is between them?

I don't think I've ever seen anything like that!

I'm thinking of putting a pool in our PA house and I want to make it look like a natural lagoon that has been there forever so I didn't want pavers around it. What you have looks like what I want!

Just as stunning inside as out! Has had me house hunting in the US, looking for a little slice of the heaven you have there :)

Wonderful mtn! You really worked wonders keeping the soul of the house while infusing it with your own impeccable style. May you and your family enjoy many sunshiny days at your lovey home!

Simply gorgeous. What a beautiful place to spend time. Lucky you! :)

I looked through the pics late last night & had to come back to them again. I've visited many coastal Maine homes and I agree with posters who remarked how you've imbued a just-right timeless quality to your home and grounds. It is so lovely and inviting. Thanks for sharing your slice of heaven with us.

Wow, just WOW!

Very pretty, it looks like a place that says "Welcome!".

I'm a southerner so planting in Maine is not anything I can help with. If it were here I'd be tempted to plant things that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. May Night Salvia, echinacea, etc. A beautiful glass birdbath, some fragrant plants to add scent when there's a breeze.

Thank you, AMCK, that is so kind of you!

Beagles,thank you! FYI the material you use at the edge of a pool is called coping, and the patio around it is called decking.

Are those rock stepping stones as the flooring around the pool area (flooring may not be the right word).

Are they comfortable under bare feet? Are they slippery? Smooth? What is between them?

I don't think I've ever seen anything like that!

It i called large, irregular blue stone. They are relatively smooth but not slippery. There are very small pebbles in between, and creeping thyme (barely visible now but eventually will populate a lot of the cracks with soft, but hardy greenery.

I'm thinking of putting a pool in our PA house and I want to make it look like a natural lagoon that has been there forever so I didn't want pavers around it. What you have looks like what I want!

I found an example I liked and just ask my LA to do pretty much the same thing for me. One thing you want to do is have the pool plastered in a very dark grey, so that is looks like a darker body of water. The other thing I like is having planting beds right up to the coping. The plantings should be big clusters of similar material; which is what you find in the wild. Nothing too fussy. Some people may reject having beds on the side of the pool because you give up decking area, but we ameliorated that somewhat by having more seating on another, elevated area. It does add to maintenance to have the beds, but to me it is worth it. You also want to choose indigenous rock where you can; we already had the old stone wall and a lot of the boulders we bought had lichen on them (they were sourced for that feature). In the vista, you may want some of the landscape to remain wild. The far side of our stone wall is untouched.

This was my inspiration, and frankly I like theirs a tad better than mine. Doing it remotely some choices were not clearly communicated or followed.

Absolutely stunning.

Thank You for the info and advice :)

I like yours better than your inspiration pic, for whatever that's worth. I prefer the stone on your hot tub by a big margin to the inspiration pic! :)

A dream, a dream as in pinch me, is this really mine? Magnificent property and you are making the already perfect, better. How is the beach water temp in that part of Maine?

So beautiful! You and your daughters have fabulous taste! How many months out of the year do you stay in this house?

Looks amazing! Are there more pics posted elsewhere? Maybe I missed the link. It's looking great!

I like the big boulders in your inspiration picture which I see you have incorporated into your landscaping. I want to put some big ones down at my lake "beach" (pointy gravel area).

Thanks, Robo. Boulders can be tricky to get to look natural. But when they look right I do really like them.

Thanks, Rocky. Picture of ...?

AKTillery, Ahh, you can barely measure it in months... It's only our third summer so we are still getting into the groove. We don't come up much in off seasons (ThxG and NYears) but some family members do. In summer, what with the kids' activities, we are probably here 10 days and home 3 or 4, then back again. I "commute" to my office one day a week from here - it's a quick flight. Next year I am shooting for basing ourselves here for all three months of summer.

Westsider, Oh it is cold! That was why I was only interested in property where we could put in a (heated!) pool. I grew up going to the "Jersey shore" and that water was usually low 70s. Here you are lucky if it is high 60s. My kids stay in but when I go to the beach I go in to cool off and then come back out in the sun.

Beagles, Funny you should say that, that is exactly my sticking point. I did not like the angles of the original hot tub stone, so I said I wanted it curvilinear (like the decking). But it is totally different; it is rounded and the color is much more rusty. I have been really pondering if I want to change it. Thankfully, i keep looking at it IRL, in different light and I think it is fine. But not really what I asked for. Sigh.

From these pictures, on my monitor, the hot tub stone looks like a close-to-perfect match with your stone wall and it looks like you matched them intentionally. I would not change it, if I were you!

Oh my, your home is just beautiful.

Thanks, Kat.

Yes Beagles, the stone wall in the pool seating area and the stone around the tub are all new and done together. So they are a perfect match to each other, just not what I really wanted.

Oh. I missed that :) I thought the stone wall was original to your property and the hot tub match was done later. Either way, looks good, but I know how disappointing it can be to get something that isn't exactly what you wanted!