A couple buy and remodel a Brooklyn townhouse, then look out through their new floor-to-ceiling windows and, noticing the wreck of a garden, request a budget-friendly overhaul.
Photography by Pia Ulin via Bangia Agostinho Architecture except where noted.
She arrived on the scene to find faux stone pavers, a useless grass patch, and a perimeter planting bed that had a bad curve with fake Belgium block.
The new garden is a tranquil space, made to feel bigger with oversized bluestone pavers and generous planting beds edged by retaining walls capped with bluestone (for extra seating).
Visible at right is a Balinese chaise the clients had purchased on a trip to Bali and which still was en route, being shipped in a container, when Lindsey first saw the garden.
Before
Conscious of the clients’ budget, Taylor analyzed the existing garden to see “what was there that could remain, what we could work with,” she says.
Remodel in progress; on the garden level of the house is a separate apartment rented to tenants.
Lightweight fiberglass boxes planted with Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ for soft screening provide privacy for both tenants and landlords.
After
Lindsey and designer Suzanne Shaker decided to paint a red exterior brick wall the same shade of white as the interior walls in the kitchen to visually connect the two adjacent spaces.
Photograph by Lindsey Taylor.
The architects designed the balcony and railing; a Fermob wire chair was sourced from GRDN in Brooklyn.
The dining table and benches are faux concrete, from Chicago-based Zachary A. Design.
Lindsey cut a pocket in the bluestone patio to create space for a Japanese stewartia tree, underplanted with lavender and boxwood.
Cornus kousa ‘Milky Way’, a dogwood tree with snowy white flowers, anchors a back corner of the garden.
Photograph by Lindsey Taylor.
The cedar fence is unstained; it will weather to a soft gray and then be sealed.
So we left the fence alone instead of staining it to keep the garden from feeling too hot and dark,” says Lindsey.