Outdoor Living, Fire Features, Amenities & Lighting
The feature clients like most about custom pool slides – particularly those of the modular variety – is their tremendous flexibility: The average slide is about 15 feet long, but the sky truly is the limit, with elaborate installations stretching out across 30 or 40 feet in length. Slopes are generously variable as well, but there are obvious space considerations that come into play with larger-scale projects. A good rule of thumb for a desirable 20-degree slope: Every foot built up vertically generally requires about three feet of horizontal build-out. Obviously, this means that space availability is a major factor in slide design and construction. The great thing is, the basic procedures of slide installation do not vary much with size, so the process, once learned, is pretty straightforward and repeatable. Here, we’ll be focusing on what this means with
How do you tear kids away from the Internet or video games on a nice summer day and get them outside to play? These days, more and more families are answering that question by creating small-scale waterparks in their own backyards. The great thing is, these micro-waterparks don’t have to be as garish or visually aggressive as their full-scale commercial counterparts. In fact, these spaces can be as easy on the eye as the watershapes at luxury resorts and hotels: Indeed, those are just the
The arrival of Dasher and Blitzen is just around the corner, and it’s a certainty that once they’ve landed on your rooftop (with such a clatter, I’m sure), they’ll cast hungry eyes on the plants arranged in the gardens below. Remember: Santa will be
When I want to work real magic into my designs, I play with fire – and do my best to find extraordinary ways to combine fire with water to express the full, captivating power of both of these natural elements. Picture flames dancing across the reflective stillness of a pool; or visualize them alongside an inviting walkway that leads you
As I see it, successful landscape lighting is a two-part process: First, the designer applies aesthetic principles that create the art, then he or she supports that artistic vision with scientific and technological savvy. One without the other doesn’t work: You can’t effectively practice the art until
As I mentioned in the first of this series of articles, I initially became involved with the art of concealment when a client showed me an interior room’s lighting system that was activated by touching a kickplate hidden in the floor moldings. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen (or not seen) and set me off on a career-long pursuit of
There are all sorts of amenities associated with outdoor living that, taken together, conspire to create what I see as undesirable visual clutter. This is why, when I approach any backyard project, I take my time in sizing up my clients and doing all I can to figure out how they’ll be using the space. If it’s to be an active, family-oriented play/recreational space, for example, I’ll start thinking about
As I’ve emphasized so far in this series on the art of concealment, it is my firm belief that, as a designer and/or builder, you must pay attention to detail if your goal is to reduce visual clutter and thereby please your clients. In my own projects, I am so accustomed to pushing past so many aesthetic obstacles that it’s become second nature to me. As a result, whenever the need arises to install, say, a junction box or a deck drain or a cleanout, I have
Through the past decade or so, the popularity of all forms of outdoor fire has increased dramatically. No matter whether it’s a fire pit, a fireplace or a fire bowl or box, more often than not these days, our clients are asking for some type of decorative fire treatment as part of their
We water and landscape professionals literally shape the outdoor environments in which we work – cutting grades, building walls, planting trees, installing pools, ponds and fountains and preparing patios, decks, planting beds and lighting systems. In designing these outdoor-living spaces, we spend the bulk of our time
