Project Spotlight: Elevated Entertaining

The main level of this home has a beautiful wood-panel pub that led to a deck that was barely big enough for a grill. The clients wanted to open the room to a much more substantial deck to accommodate larger gatherings and integrate the indoor and outdoor living spaces while preserving privacy from the neighbors.

The new space needed to offer relief from evening insects and untimely showers, but also extend the outdoor season and add direct access to the yard. The roof line was low and the side yard setback restrictions dictated that the new structure could not extend beyond the side of the garage.

So, senior designer Heather Sweeney created a complete solution with a tall, mechanically-louvered pergola, disappearing screens, a line-of-sight fireplace wall, glass bifold doors and an open deck that wraps around the back of the house. While it extends the pub’s black and brown tones, the project achieved the clean contemporary look the clients desired.

It’s Alive! – Planting a Living Privacy Fence

The fence is the simplest way to divide boundaries and to create privacy in your yard. The difficulty with fences, however, is that many municipalities only allow for the construction of fences that are 6 feet in height. This limits to the amount of privacy that can be achieved with just a fence. If you would like to have anything taller, there are a few simple ways in which privacy can be achieved. The best such way being, with plants!

What are Living Walls?

From a reclaimed pallet filled with herbs to a 15-story building covered in over 10,000 plants, living walls are becoming more and more popular—and for good reason. Whether indoors or out, they offer much more than just beauty. Living walls improve air quality and increase overall well-being, but can also absorb sound and help insulate your home.

Magic Carpet

So often the clean lines of steppers are lost to overgrowth or remain too severe. Sagina subulata is the perfect infill for such situations but it does not transplant very well in our climate. However it is very easy to seed in place as these before and after pictures demonstrate. The above picture was taken eight weeks after the area was seeded.

Salad Days

Long before it became a scourge upon middle class Americans wanting to masquerade as lords and princes upon their suburban estates, the dandelion was prized for its usefulness making medicine, wine, and food. In these dreary days of March, even the most fervent dandelion hater looks forward to the emergence of this adversary.

Growing Cocktails

Tomatoes, cucumbers, rosemary, and basil are staples to a great vegetable and herb garden, providing fresh produce straight to your table. Whether you enjoy canning or cooking with your bounty, gardeners across the land cannot deny the benefits to growing your own food. Now, gardening isn’t a walk in the park. They need a lot of care and attention and I for one am a firm believer in rewarding oneself for hard work. My rewards usually tend to lean towards the adult beverage variety and being a gardener myself I feel like there is no reason why you cannot “spice” up (pun intended) your repertoire by using herbs and vegetables of your own with your favorite cocktails. There are limitless concoctions out there, my personal favorite being The Infused Bloody Mary. To infuse your own vodka for Bloody Marys you simply take fresh garlic, cilantro and jalapenos from your garden, add in your favorite vodka and seal it in a glass container to steep for a few days. Adding this infused vodka to any Bloody Mary mix or V8 or your very own freshly squeezed tomato juice will truly make your experience one of a kind.

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Mom's & Design Build

12275 Weckman Road
Shakopee, MN, 55379
United States

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Monday8:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Tuesday8:00 AM — 5:00 PM
Wednesday8:00 AM — 5:00 PM
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Friday8:00 AM — 5:00 PM
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