Amanda Austin paints personalities with interior design
Walking into Amanda Austin's Federal Hill studio, you immediately sense this is not your typical design firm. Between the scented candles, meditative music, and Austin's warm demeanor, a client would feel at ease putting their most personal spaces in her hands.
Dubbing herself "caretaker of a business and not a business owner," her personal approach to client relationships has allowed her company...
The inside scoop on 10 great Baltimore 'hoods
Baltimore has always been a city of neighborhoods, every one a universe unto itself. Each section of our city has its own history, culture, and personality—an identity that can only be truly understood after years or generations of experience. For this story, we combined our own expertise with that of dozens of residents to create insiders' guides to some of our greatest neighborhoods. So dog-ear...
Everything you need to know about selecting a home contractor.
Most times, when Kevin Nau's phone rings, it's would-be customers jabbering excitedly about a glittery new kitchen or that two-story addition they've been dreaming of for years. But every once in a while, Nau gets another type of call—from a distressed homeowner who's sunk time and money into a renovation project only to discover the hired hand isn't up to the task.
One such call last year came...
Here are the top tips from the experts on how to protect your home.
You've spent thousands of dollars on landscaping, sunk countless hours into boosting your curb appeal, and painted your home to make it all it can be. Good work. It looks fabulous. Now we're going to tell you how to make it less attractive—to potential burglars, at least.
Here are 11 tips from Baltimore police and security experts on how to convince burglars that you're just too risky to rob:...
When it was time for an upgrade, this couple started by tossing the tub.
Though they had built their five-bedroom, seven-and-a-half bath dream home in 1998, a decade later, a Pikesville couple's master bathroom area—with its laminated vanities, cramped shower, and small walk-in closets—seemed to no longer make the grade.
"When we moved in, they were our first walk-in closets ever," says the wife, "and we were so excited just to have them. But after living here for a...
The lowdown on fruit trees, summer bulbs, and sick-looking rugosas.
Q: I've purchased a small cottage on a lot of less than a quarter acre and I've always dreamed of having my own mixed-fruit orchard, populated with fruit trees that are easy to grow. Could you suggest species that might work here?
A: An attractive solution is miniature fruit trees, which are hybridized to thrive in small gardens. Most of these arrive by early March at local nurseries and garden...
The Graduate
After living for many years as a student—first as an undergraduate at The Johns Hopkins University, then as a master's student of public health at Boston University, and finally as a medical student in Missouri—Alice Tang was more than ready to live like an adult.
"I lived in dorm rooms year after year," says Tang, now an emergency room doctor at Franklin Square Hospital. "When I was living in...
As domestic chicken coops rise in popularity, that clucking you hear just might be coming from your neighbor’s backyard.
Pip, a gleaming, black, long-tailed Bantam rooster, is no ordinary chicken. He likes to climb the green-runged ladder of the family playset and slide down the lemon-yellow slide; he's treated to table scraps—like shrimp tails and birthday cake—and gets carried about the yard like a king. Because, you see, Pip lives not on a farm, but in a Baltimore County backyard. And he's not alone.
Backyard...
With a designer’s eye for the contemporary, a Pikesville homeowner brings his kitchen dreams to life.
If you think that because most Baltimore kitchen designs tend toward the traditional, they’re all going to look like that, Michael Cohen has a surprise for you: His Pikesville kitchen breathes a fresh spirit of European modernism into what America has decided is the most important room in the house.
When Cohen started the redesign of the room, he took his inspiration from the contemporary...
He may not be coaching anymore, but Brian Billick tackles everything—including his new Eastern Shore estate—with the same fierce attention to detail.
When former Ravens head coach Brian Billick and his wife Kim decided to build a spectacular waterfront home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, their decision to settle in the Mid-Atlantic for good surprised even themselves.
Billick, who was raised in California and had coaching stints in San Diego and Los Angeles, and Kim, who’s from New Mexico, always assumed they’d go west.
“I’m a West Coast guy,”...
