reflections
Given the choice, there are few projects I enjoy more than renovations: The process of taking an existing outdoor space that isn't making people happy and coming to their rescue with a personalized dreamscape is about as satisfying as it gets. This sort of shift in vision happens quite often when homes change hands and the new owners bring in a different set of needs and desires. In grand terms, there might be nothing particularly "wrong" with the original setting, but if the new owners either want to
This article concludes a little series I've been doing that feature bowls in association with my pool and spa designs. The first two were about water bowls in very different applications. This one is about fire bowls and, in greater detail, about materials you can put in them to cover the burners, disperse the flames and make them look good even when
Sometimes, things come together in just the right way. I'd been called in to a multimillion-dollar property with a large, three-year-old house on it, right next to the Chattahoochee River on the northwestern fringe of Atlanta. There was an existing pool, but the homeowners wanted something new - a composition that befitted the home's elegance and said more about
I've been around watershapes a long time - for more than three-quarters of my professional life. I started out with scientific and technical magazines in 1980, but once I started splashing around at Pool & Spa News in 1987, I never really looked back. As it turns out, I found my way into the world of aquatics
These days, we do most of our work in the hills in and around Newport Beach, Calif. To describe the area as "affluent" is understating the case: For years now, even modest homes for sale in the area usually draw seven-figure prices - and the more modest the home, the likelier it is that it will be torn down and replaced with something larger and more elaborate. Through the past few years, we at Pure Water Pools of Costa Mesa, Calif., have been called to many of these built-out properties by homeowners who