Half time.
It took some real outside the box thinking for Randi and Darrell Braman to recognize—and renovate—their dream home. "When we first looked at the house, it was Super Bowl weekend, and everything was frozen over," recalls Darrell, an attorney for T. Rowe Price. "You needed imagination to see that this place had potential."
Though the Owings Mills home had some interesting interior features—a...
On messy mulberries, driveway dreams, and The Great Weed Debate.
Q: We have a huge mulberry tree on our property. Because of its size, the tree cascades into our neighbor’s yard by at least 10 feet. Our neighbor is unhappy about the berries that fall onto his walkway and stain it—so we are forced to cut it back. Our concern is that the tree won’t be able to handle heavy pruning and that we’ll never see the enormous amount of berries this lovely tree produced...
The inside scoop on Baltimore's booming burgs.
Baltimore has always been a city of neighborhoods, each with its own character and charm. Over the years, once-glorious blocks fall into disrepair, abandoned burgs are built up, people move in and move out, and the essence of a neighborhood evolves. In recent years, despite difficult economic conditions, several parts of Baltimore have grown by leaps and bounds. Harbor East, once an industrial...
These homeowners took the heat-pump plunge to save the planet—and a lot of money, too.
He'd been putting off the big moment for years, but Bill Davidson finally decided enough was enough. The carbon cycle, he says, "is a bad problem to be a part of"—it was heat-pump time.
Last year, Davidson decided to temporarily destroy his backyard (which, he points out, had long needed a makeover anyway) in order to dig four 200-foot-deep holes in the ground. The idea is to install water pipes...
Primers on forcing blooms indoors, the season's first roses, and container gardening.
Q: Buying flowers at the store is expensive. Is it possible to bring twigs and branches indoors for early blooming?
A: It's a great idea, but there are certain trees and shrubs that are more suitable to forcing into bloom than others. It takes two to six weeks for cuttings to bloom indoors. Stems should be split at the base and then placed in vases, filled with warm water, and a 1/2-teaspoon of...
The latest bathroom designs blend function and fantasy on a livable scale.
When award-winning interior designer Patrick Sutton was commissioned to design a North Baltimore family's home, the master bath presented a unique challenge. "This was part of an upgrade to an existing, older home where the bathrooms were tiny," Sutton explains. "The client wanted something current, modern, yet comfortable."
The renovated bathroom is certainly comfortable, with separate bathing,...
Boyhood games creating furniture vignettes in the basement have led Jay Jenkins to the top of his field in Baltimore.
Wearing perfectly polished black Gucci loafers, a black cashmere sweater, and gray corduroy trousers, designer Jay Jenkins strides across the Portuguese slate and French limestone foyer of his apartment to decant two bottles of Evian water into a pair of embossed Christian Lacroix carafes. Even when Jenkins is doing something mundane—such as offering a guest a glass of water—he is impossibly chic...
You've heard of green roofs, green cars—even green car washes. But green kitchens?
Polly Bart wants me to take a whiff.
I'm sitting in a kitchen, and no, there's no stew simmering on the stove or tray of cookies in the oven. In fact, I don't smell much of anything. And that's a good thing, I'm told.
It's a smallish kitchen with freshly painted yellow walls in a 1940s Colonial in Catonsville. Bart's contracting company, Greenbuilders, has just completed renovations—a project...
You couldn't find two more different canvases for holiday decorating, but the message of celebration and hope is the same.
At first glance, the two houses would seem about as dissimilar as they could possibly be. One is a wide, square, Federal-style manse with a grand entry and a wraparound porch in a small town surrounded by farm country. The other is a looming four-story Queen Anne row house in a city neighborhood creeping towards revitalization.
The circa-1847 country house is filled with tradition: gilt-framed...
The Choptank River home of Easton's Jamie Merida showcases the keen eye that has propelled this self-made design and decor expert to national renown.
When Jamie Merida opened his home décor store in Easton, his father gave him some business advice. "He said to make sure I named it something people could pronounce," says Merida with a laugh. "And really, how many stores are there out there that you couldn't even begin to say right?" The advice was obviously sound. Bountiful, Merida's 18,000-square-foot store, has become a destination for...
