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Perfected Peonies from the Little Flower School
We don't want the flowers in the front hallway to look stiff and self-conscious, as if they're posing for a painting called Still Life with Peonies. But we definitely want peonies in the hall. And in...
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Restaurant Visit: Joan's on Third
Whenever we're in LA, Julie and I head straight to Joan's on Third (it doesn't hurt that it's across the street from Noodle Stories, our favorite clothing shop in the city). Joan McNamara founded her...
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Blasen Landscape Architects: Salt and Sea and a Garden
Drive along Highway 1 north of San Francisco for 20 miles, until you reach that wide, foggy stretch of Stinson Beach where you can glimpse ocean out the driver's side window and Marin County's grassy...
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New Feist Chair from Casamidy
Our ever-inventive friend Jorge Alameda of Casamidy was inspired to create the Feist chair after a recent trip to Amsterdam. "Feist means bike in Dutch," he says. "We couldn't help but notice that...
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New Fiets Chair from Casamidy
Our ever-inventive friend Jorge Alameda of Casamidy was inspired to create the Fiets chair after a recent trip to Amsterdam. "Fiets means bike in Dutch," he says. "We couldn't help but notice that...
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Rae Dunn's Cycle-Centric Ceramics
New from San Francisco ceramicist Rae Dunn, cycle-centric ceramics perfect for the bike enthusiast. (N.B.: For more of her work, see our earlier post Tabletop: Salt and Pepper Cellars from Rae Dunn.)...
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Steal This Look: Summer Biergarten Table
Spring is here, which makes us think about outdoor entertaining, so while on The Martha Stewart Show today we are recreating the biergarten ambiance at San Francisco's white-hot Suppenküche Biergarten...
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DIY: Leather Napkin Ties
For a casual table setting, and particularly for outdoor settings, it's nice to have an alternative to napkin rings. A while back I spotted some leather ties at San Francisco's Bar Bambino and decided...
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Lap Blankets for Outdoor Dining
The proprietors of Suppenküche in San Francisco are opposed to heating lamps ("So ugly," they say) in their biergarten. Instead, they provide stacks of scratchy WWII surplus wool blankets to ward off...
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Design Sleuth: Wheat as Decor
Spotted (and admired) at Suppenküche restaurant in San Francisco: small bunches of wheat suspended by a wire that stretches across the ceiling. Above: Photo via Yayayanonono. Above: Use 500 feet of...
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Stealth Retreat: Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley
A five-star resort with sheep, bees, and vines—welcome to Northern California. Obscurely located in its own canyon, Calistoga Ranch is not easy to find: It's situated at the northern end of the Napa...
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Sonoma Farmhouse by Houseplans
When our friends Stephen Williamson and his wife, Alexandra, stumbled on a half-acre lot in Sonoma, they saw potential: a location to use as a case study for building a modern Napa farmhouse....
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DIY: Instant Wine Bar
Here's a clever idea we spotted at the Medlock Ames Winery in Healdsburg, CA: a picnic table as wine tasting bar. Architect Luke Wade and builder Andy Bannister (the designers of Medlock Ames' tasting...
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High/Low Opaque Globe Lighting
Admiring the white globe lights in today's Sonoma farmhouse kitchen? Here are two options (at opposite ends of the pricing spectrum) to achieve a diffused glow. Above: Two white globe lights hang in...
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The Buzz: Beekeeping in Napa
Beyond the pool, nestled in the woods by the greenhouse, is where the bees live at Calistoga Ranch. About a year ago, the first honeybees arrived at the rustic Napa Valley resort. The original two...
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The Romantic Picnic Basket
The act of picnicking is inherently romantic—for occasions requiring perfect presentation (think Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief), consider Heath's special edition, hand-plaited ash...
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10 Easy Pieces: Eco-Friendly Paints
No longer does "going green" mean a sacrifice in paint or color quality. The eco-friendly paint market has grown and evolved since we last looked at this topic: the paints we feature here perform like...
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Tabletop Garden of Succulents
If you think you'll never have a garden—maybe you don't have even an inch of outdoor space, or the tiniest inkling of how to care for plants—I have one word of advice. Succulents. Get a bunch of the...
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Venice Beach's Favorite Restaurant
There are two ways to pronounce "Axe." One you know; the other is Ah-shay, which is how they say it in LA (and in the West African language Yorùbá). Venice Beach restaurant Axe, which takes its name...
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The Modern Cabana
My father-in-law, a man of many hobbies, understood something important: Everybody needs a shed. He had an empire of tiny buildings dotting his backyard: one to store tools, a second for metal work...
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