A new-to-me realtor calls Tuesday mid-day asking about my services. The phone call quickly turned into a 'yes' but I mentioned unless I do this 'tomorrow', it couldn't get done until next week Tuesday or Wednesday due to other obligations. It's in Cayucos, which poses another issue - do I make the trip up to preview (it's an hour away, do I have time), or can I get what I need off of the internet? AND we had rain to contend with... it's never easy to stage in the rain. Fortunately I'm a very spatially-minded person and could make my plans based on the existing internet photos. A girl needs her plans! So Wednesday, between the spurts of rain, my sons and I spend all morning packing for this stage, and Wednesday afternoon / into evening my sons and I head out, unload, and stage this beautiful.... no..... GORGEOUS home ON THE WATER in Cayucos. WOW!!! The boys told me upon arrival: 'We should buy this!' I'm thinking the same thing! So, in retrospect, this stage was a vacant, sight-unseen home, and within about 24 hours went from realtor request to stage-done status. Please forgive the darkness of the photos, it was 6:30 at night when we were done, it was dark!

A new-to-me realtor calls Tuesday mid-day asking about my services. The phone call quickly turned into a 'yes' but I mentioned unless I do this 'tomorrow', it couldn't get done until next week Tuesday or Wednesday due to other obligations. It's in Cayucos, which poses another issue - do I make the trip up to preview (it's an hour away, do I have time), or can I get what I need off of the internet? AND we had rain to contend with... it's never easy to stage in the rain. Fortunately I'm a very spatially-minded person and could make my plans based on the existing internet photos. A girl needs her plans! So Wednesday, between the spurts of rain, my sons and I spend all morning packing for this stage, and Wednesday afternoon / into evening my sons and I head out, unload, and stage this beautiful.... no..... GORGEOUS home ON THE WATER in Cayucos. WOW!!! The boys told me upon arrival: 'We should buy this!' I'm thinking the same thing! So, in retrospect, this stage was a vacant, sight-unseen home, and within about 24 hours went from realtor request to stage-done status. Please forgive the darkness of the photos, it was 6:30 at night when we were done, it was dark!

A new-to-me realtor calls Tuesday mid-day asking about my services. The phone call quickly turned into a 'yes' but I mentioned unless I do this 'tomorrow', it couldn't get done until next week Tuesday or Wednesday due to other obligations. It's in Cayucos, which poses another issue - do I make the trip up to preview (it's an hour away, do I have time), or can I get what I need off of the internet? AND we had rain to contend with... it's never easy to stage in the rain. Fortunately I'm a very spatially-minded person and could make my plans based on the existing internet photos. A girl needs her plans! So Wednesday, between the spurts of rain, my sons and I spend all morning packing for this stage, and Wednesday afternoon / into evening my sons and I head out, unload, and stage this beautiful.... no..... GORGEOUS home ON THE WATER in Cayucos. WOW!!! The boys told me upon arrival: 'We should buy this!' I'm thinking the same thing! So, in retrospect, this stage was a vacant, sight-unseen home, and within about 24 hours went from realtor request to stage-done status. Please forgive the darkness of the photos, it was 6:30 at night when we were done, it was dark!

A new-to-me realtor calls Tuesday mid-day asking about my services. The phone call quickly turned into a 'yes' but I mentioned unless I do this 'tomorrow', it couldn't get done until next week Tuesday or Wednesday due to other obligations. It's in Cayucos, which poses another issue - do I make the trip up to preview (it's an hour away, do I have time), or can I get what I need off of the internet? AND we had rain to contend with... it's never easy to stage in the rain. Fortunately I'm a very spatially-minded person and could make my plans based on the existing internet photos. A girl needs her plans! So Wednesday, between the spurts of rain, my sons and I spend all morning packing for this stage, and Wednesday afternoon / into evening my sons and I head out, unload, and stage this beautiful.... no..... GORGEOUS home ON THE WATER in Cayucos. WOW!!! The boys told me upon arrival: 'We should buy this!' I'm thinking the same thing! So, in retrospect, this stage was a vacant, sight-unseen home, and within about 24 hours went from realtor request to stage-done status. Please forgive the darkness of the photos, it was 6:30 at night when we were done, it was dark!

design: Carrie Preston (Studio TOOP) and Jasper Helmantel (Cruydt Hoeck), 2011 location: Appeltern, NL status: built in 2012 by Appeltern Model Garden Complex photos: Jolanthe Lalkens, June 2013 Designed as assignment from both the Dutch gardening magazine Groei & Bloei and the television and radio nature program Vara's Vroege Vogels, this garden serves as a model of how homeowners can incorporate lots of plant life and wildlife into the design but without sacrificing practicality or aesthetics. The garden is deliberately contemporary in its style to emphasize that nature-rich gardens need not look a certain way - insects and birds don't care if the lines are straight or curved. At the same time the garden makes use of affordable, simple, no-nonsense materials. The 40x60 cm paving stones are one of the most common and affordable paving options in the Netherlands, available en masse for free on the Internet. Conceptually we imagined a garden completely paved with the tiles (as to many gardens are) and what would happen if took out some of these stones, used them to build benches and structure and added plants where the tiles had been. In the construction of the benches we include other materials such as bamboo sticks and insulation bricks that create habitat for insects such as solitary bees. The plant palette is based on a selection of native and host plants in combination with the 26 plants plan set up by Groei & Boei -- a list of plants aimed at making the use of more plants in gardens accessible and less intimidating. The choice for the number 26 corresponds with the number of letters in the alphabet in line with the famous Dutch garden designer Mien Ruy's comment that if we only need 26 letters to create a whole language, we should be able to combine and mix 26 plants to express far more than we think.

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

Izumi Tanaka
Minimalist exterior home photo in Los Angeles

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

We love how this room sits behind the Pine tree which also acts as shading from the full sun. This room was based on our Dawn design with a small canopy, The clients wanted a multi-functioning garden room that provided the correct conditions for general storage as well as a separate home office. Externally, the room was clad in Millboard composite Shadow line Golden oak fitted horizontally. and was further complemented with millboard antique Oak decking. Internally the room featured a Vertical electric heater and was powered and complemented with armoured electrical power cable down the side of the garden along with triple CAT 6 cable to enable high-specification internet connection to the garden room. Fenestration was 3 leaf bifold doors. The storage area was completed with a hidden door in the Millboard cladding, and fitted out with innovative bike storage and racking. The lighting was on auto sensors and featured up/down lights in matt black

This room is the Media Room in the 2016 Junior League Shophouse. This space is intended for a family meeting space where a multi generation family could gather. The idea is that the kids could be playing video games while their grandparents are relaxing and reading the paper by the fire and their parents could be enjoying a cup of coffee while skimming their emails. This is a shot of the wall mounted tv screen, a ceiling mounted projector is connected to the internet and can stream anything online. Photo by Jared Kuzia.

design: Carrie Preston (Studio TOOP) and Jasper Helmantel (Cruydt Hoeck), 2011 location: Appeltern, NL status: built in 2012 by Appeltern Model Garden Complex photos: Olga van Saane, October 2013 Designed as assignment from both the Dutch gardening magazine Groei & Bloei and the television and radio nature program Vara's Vroege Vogels, this garden serves as a model of how homeowners can incorporate lots of plant life and wildlife into the design but without sacrificing practicality or aesthetics. The garden is deliberately contemporary in its style to emphasize that nature-rich gardens need not look a certain way - insects and birds don't care if the lines are straight or curved. At the same time the garden makes use of affordable, simple, no-nonsense materials. The 40x60 cm paving stones are one of the most common and affordable paving options in the Netherlands, available en masse for free on the Internet. Conceptually we imagined a garden completely paved with the tiles (as to many gardens are) and what would happen if took out some of these stones, used them to build benches and structure and added plants where the tiles had been. In the construction of the benches we include other materials such as bamboo sticks and insulation bricks that create habitat for insects such as solitary bees. The plant palette is based on a selection of native and host plants in combination with the 26 plants plan set up by Groei & Boei -- a list of plants aimed at making the use of more plants in gardens accessible and less intimidating. The choice for the number 26 corresponds with the number of letters in the alphabet in line with the famous Dutch garden designer Mien Ruy's comment that if we only need 26 letters to create a whole language, we should be able to combine and mix 26 plants to express far more than we think.