Gardening

Soft Power – Home & Design Magazine

Malika Lugar 12 months ago

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser blends family and civic life in the camera-ready main floor of her home in the city

Washington’s mayor granted several television interviews from her home in Colonial Village in 2018, all in the wake of adopting her baby daughter, Miranda Elizabeth. Each time, she used her living room’s blush walls and contemporary furnishings as a backdrop to discuss the importance of balancing work and motherhood. “I love my home, I love my neighborhood and I love that I’ve made my house really work well for my daughter and me,” Muriel Bowser says of the renovation she orchestrated the year before Miranda arrived. Since then, she’s welcomed a steady stream of family, friends and guests through the main level, which includes an open living/dining room and an adjacent TV room.

Bowser credits DC designer Trystin Kier Francis with remaking these spaces, replacing what she calls a “hodgepodge”

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Calm Vibe – Home & Design Magazine

Malika Lugar 12 months ago

Designer Tracy Morris fashions tranquil spaces for working and unwinding in her newly constructed McLean home

Tracy Morris knows her way around a color fan deck. The designer often lends her paint-hue prowess to spec-home builders seeking palettes with broad appeal. In a happy twist of fate, one such collaboration ultimately led her and husband Justin Li to a new abode of their own, as well as a spacious studio for her expanding team.

In 2018, Artisan Builders enlisted Morris to select exterior and interior paint colors for three speculative houses under construction in McLean. A year later, Morris and Li decided they’d outgrown their townhouse and began searching for larger digs with greater office-space potential. Morris recalled the earlier consult and reached out to Artisan. The trio of homes had just been listed for sale​​—​and the couple acted quickly. “I selected the colors for the houses before I had

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Water’s Edge – Home & Design Magazine

Malika Lugar 12 months ago

A new home hewn from organic materials respects its pristine setting on the banks of the Potomac River, overlooking Mount Vernon

Inspired by the natural beauty of the Potomac River, George Washington once wrote that no estate in America was “more pleasantly situated” than his beloved Mount Vernon.
Today, Jennifer Brooks can make that claim from a sparkling retreat directly across the Potomac from the first president’s Virginia farm. Though a storybook view of Washington’s white-columned porch is prominent, her shingled residence on the Maryland shoreline disappears into the pines and cedars. This self-effacing design was the genius of architect Greg Wiedemann, who knew “blending in” would suit his client while ensuring approval by powerful stakeholders controlling development in Mount Vernon’s historic viewshed.

“It was a challenge,” the architect acknowledges. “We wanted to build in a way that really blended in with the landscape.”

Wiedemann’s portfolio includes splashy waterfront homes,

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