<p>Free spirit meets silver spoon in Sloane Brown’s stunning Canton condo.</p>
Sloane Brown is no stranger to interior design.
When her mother, Clare Bingham Cochran, moved to a lakeside home outside of Boulder, CO, in 1971, Brown and her three younger siblings were given carte blanche (okay, within a budget) to design their own bedrooms. Brown, whose room featured a hanging wicker chair and a piece of Jefferson Airplane artwork, was in decorating heaven. “It was great,”...
<p>Nonprofit Second Chance is settling quite nicely into its new home.</p>
Once you visit the new home of Second Chance, one of the area’s best architectural salvage sources, it becomes apparent why its recent move took several months to accomplish—even if it was literally just around the corner. Starting in October of 2011, it successfully relocated the contents of its five warehouses (equaling 160,000 square feet, or the equivalent of 80 houses) on Warner Street to a...
Furniture-rehab experts know that for a tattered piece of upholstered furniture, beauty isn’t always skin-deep.
After Eric Dickman’s parents passed away, his memories of the two in their Georgetown home lingered.
“The front door opened into the living room,” recalls Dickman, who currently resides in Federal Hill, “[and] when I came into the house, my mother and father were always right there, sitting in their twin wingback chairs.” So when he and his wife, Karen, began to rehab the residence, he resisted...
<p>After a slump in the industry, buyers are dipping their toes into pools again.</p>
Sometimes, people just get tired of worrying about the economy, and say “to hell with it.” And that seems to be what’s happening in the pool business: There’s pent-up demand that’s finally driving people to take the plunge.
“When the economy went bad,” says Gary Hohne, owner of Baltimore-based Hohne Pools, “it was literally like turning off a switch.” But, now, notes Francis Stefanski, owner of...
<p>With the right species and a little TLC, your rose garden can be the envy of the ’hood.</p>
Anybody who’s tried to grow roses knows they can be frustrating, plagued by everything from once-a-season blossoms and black spot to beetles, mites, yellowing leaves, and more.
Unless you’re a purist who’s determined to keep up the fight, the answer is repeat-blooming, or recurrent, roses. So, here are some tips on which species to choose and how to keep them colorful and healthy.
Among some of...
<p>2012 Baltimore Home Resource Guide</p>
Directory listings include firms that have appeared recently in Baltimore, past "Best of Baltimore" winners, and those recommended to us by people whose judgment we trust. However, the listings do not constitute endorsements by Baltimore. It is the reader's responsibility to check into the background and reputation of any firm before purchasing goods or services.
ANTIQUES
The Antique Man, 1806-12...
<p>Making a recipe is easy with combo tins.</p>
Just in time for summer, TSP Spices has introduced “the scoop” combo tin ($9.99), featuring the organic spices and recipes needed to make flavorful ice cream. This type of pairing is an effort on the part of the Baltimore company to expand uses for its individual teaspoon-sized spice packets, available at some area markets or online at tspspices.com. “We’re trying to do more,” says TSP’s new...
Adding a touch of functionality to fashionable design.
Now you can buckle up for safety even when you’re sitting down for breakfast with this Seatbelt Chair, which takes repurposed furniture to a whole new level. It’s handmade using scrap material and cotton seatbelts in a crisscross pattern to give it contrast and texture. A seating group of this unique (and surprisingly comfortable) chair, available in several colors, will add personality to your...
In a new memoir, a Baltimore couple tackles the challenges of renovating a historic home—and discovering their own hearts in the process.
When most men fall in love, they buy flowers. Ron Tanner bought a wrecked Victorian row house.
In 1999, Tanner, 58, met and fell under the spell of Jill Eicher, 48. Though Tanner wasn’t looking to buy a home, much less one that would require a Herculean effort to make livable, he was smitten with a woman who shared his passion for old things. Six months into their courtship, he made the grand (...
We went in search of metro-area nurseries and garden centers with unusual strengths—and we found plenty.
If you’re starting to dream up grand plans for your little oasis of outdoors, be it a wooded backyard or a patio container garden, then it must be time to do the annual garden-center crawl.
But while your first impulse might be to head to the nearest big-box home-improvement store to satisfy your gardening needs this season, remember that good things often come in smaller boxes.
Those smaller,...
