My brother Chris and I often hike the wooded areas that surround the Garden Home Retreat. Exploring the forest is a pastime that goes back to our childhood, and it gives us a chance to go over landscape projects we are working on together on the property.

On a recent walk we talked about building a little Gothic pavilion on a spot overlooking the Arkansas River. It could be a great place to sit and watch the river go by. We found the perfect location where the ground is level and then drops to a steep incline.  A small pavilion or belvedere would be an intriguing destination that one would come to along the woodland garden path. From the best we could tell it wouldn’t take much to open up a few views to the east and west looking up and down the river.

If you have been to the Retreat or seen photographs of the house, you know that it is all in the Greek Revival style; a Gothic structure would add a touch of contrast. I see it also being very rustic hexagonal building with five windows and a door. It’d be fun to use Tulip Popular bark around the windows.

Right around the time Chris and I began discussing the pavilion, Marvin Windows and Doors approached me about designing a window for their MyMarvin project.  Seeing as rustic Gothic was on my mind, I designed a window with a pointed arch made of rough, branches with peeling bark.  It would be perfect for my pavilion in the woods.

You can see my Gothic window design here.



Well, we have come to that time of the year when I have taken the opportunity to open up the back parlor French doors that lead to the back porch. This doubles the size of the space and creates one giant indoor-outdoor room. Of course, everybody gravitates to the porch so they can enjoy the weather.

I am so excited about the weather and kicking back on the porch, I’ve broken a cardinal rule and invited Lucky and Angel, the resident dogs, in the house. They spent a good 15 minutes jumping from one piece of furniture to the next before settling in for an afternoon nap. It is funny how we humans spend so much time inside that we can’t wait to get outdoors, while Lucky and Angel have the whole farm to explore and they love to lay around on the couch.

I rely on potted plants to bring the garden onto the back porch. In winter it’s pots of little evergreen trees, junipers, arborvitae and so forth, but once the weather warms up I replace the evergreens with bay trees, citrus and sago palms. Last summer I was at a friend’s farm in Pennsylvania and he had lined his porch with a series of 14-inch clay pots of aspidistra (cast iron plant). What a great look! I plan to do the same on the porches at the retreat.

For now I am enjoying the porch before pollen season hits when everything will be covered in yellow dust.  Just a few weeks when I can truly blur the lines between inside and out.

I cherish the little art studio at the Garden Home Retreat. It is one of the few places where I can truly turn off the outside world and get away.

I savor winter weekends spent in the studio working on drawings and paintings.  When it is bitterly cold outside and the garden is wearing its winter clothes, the studio is like a warm cocoon with a fire in the fire place and bright, natural light flooding in from the sliding doors and windows.

Even on the bleakest February day, the garden still offers plenty of inspiration for my paintings.  From my cozy perch I can look out of the windows toward the northwest and down the Arkansas River Valley to get a generous view of the river. The river looks so vast one might think it is a lake.  The sight brings to mind the Hudson River Valley painters of the 19th Century.

Several years ago I went to Alana on the Hudson River, the home of Fredrick Church the great American landscape painter.  I was there in autumn when the fall foliage was at its peak.  What a thrilling place if you love history, painting and landscape.  While my river valley may not be quite as sublime, I have to say that it runs a very close second.

“Incorporating design elements from other people’s homes into your own.” That’s one super-fancy way of saying “stealing ideas from your friends and family.” Before we dive into a full-throated breakdown of how you can engage in such risky behavior, let’s discuss the ethics of it.

For all intents and purposes what we’re endorsing is stealing – of a sort. We are about to tell you to walk into the home of a casual acquaintance and rip off a feature that they likely paid someone handsomely to create. Or even worse, something to which the homeowners committed their own blood, sweat and tears to create.

And we’re telling you to walk in and make it your own.

Ethically challenging? Maybe (but it’s easier to swallow if you call it “inspiration” rather than “plagiarism”). Aesthetically important? Absolutely! And here’s some proof that it’s a perfectly legitimate practice.

When you’re ready to borrow some design inspiration, consider:

How close are you to your target?

Is this a family member? A close friend? The parent of one of your kid’s schoolmates? A valued customer? Your neighbor? This is the most important factor in determining how far you should be willing to go in “absorbing” some of their design ideas into your own abode. If you’re dealing with a family member, you may be able to take some greater liberties with your “incorporating.” As they say in the design business, blood is thicker than water treatments, so go ahead and re-create your cousin’s fountain.

If you’re dealing with a friend you should ask yourself how often they’ll be visiting you. Are they frequent guests? The road becomes a little slipperier because chances are you won’t be able to cover up your copycat work forever. Carefully consider the relationship and the violation of trust you’re about the engage in.

Be discreet.

Considering the stakes (a failed relationship and/or the aesthetic quality of your home), you need to be thorough in your research while operating under the radar. Whipping out a camera or a drawing pad isn’t recommended, unless you’re armed with a really, really solid fib. You not only have to be able to misrepresent your near-term intentions, but you also don’t want to create a suspicion that would cause your victim to be on the lookout next time they visit your home.

If you’re able, there are any number of small cameras and recording devices you could employ to get a thorough rendering of your soon-to-be masterpiece without giving the impression that you’re up to something. Other things to avoid include asking for left-over materials, staring, and trying to remove fixtures and swatches during your stay.

Be prepared for the fallout.

Inevitably the day will come when your victim strolls through your home and sees something familiar. When that day arrives, will you be ready? Your response depends on your level of coolness. Once you’re accused, will you stutter and stammer your way into a guilty plea? Or can you look your friend or family member in the eye and say with all sincerity, “I don’t see the resemblance”?

It is at this moment you’ll seal your fate. Make no mistake: You’re guilty of design larceny. But the level of guilt will be determined by your victim, and if you are properly prepared to convince them otherwise, you might be able to beat the rap, enjoy your newly designed home and maintain some semblance of a friendship.

Following these three simple rules will allow you to beautify your home while maintaining a solid relationship with your friends and family. Keeping a clean conscience is a different story!

Editor’s note: Today’s contribution from architect and author Sarah Susanka was originally published on her “Not So Big Life” Web site.

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In this period of economic uncertainty, I keep noticing how much people are struggling to find purpose in their lives. In fact for many there’s a lifelong search for their life’s true purpose that never seems to resolve itself. What is this preoccupation with purpose, and what do we think it means? Could it be that we’re missing the point? Could it be that the kind of purpose we have in mind is actually an obfuscation of the real purpose that is inherent in every human being from the first moment of awareness?

Ever since we were children or young adults, we’ve been asked what we are going to become when we grow up. This creates in us an orientation toward material, physical, or intellectual accomplishment. If we make a lot of money, then somehow we believe we’ve found our life’s purpose, while if we do not, and if we feel somehow dissatisfied with the employment we find, we believe we have not yet found our purpose. Sometimes even the accumulation of success, money and stuff doesn’t satisfy. It’s exciting perhaps for a year or two, but then the glow wears thin, and we still sense a missing “something” that must be where our true purpose resides.

So we keep hunting and hunting, longing to feel that sense of wholeness and fulfillment that we somehow know will come when we find that true purpose. Could it be though that we are looking in the wrong place for that sense of fulfillment?

At this particular moment in our collective world, people from all walks of life are finding their livelihoods in the equivalent of “pause” mode, like when you hit the pause button on the TV remote. Although they’re going through the motions of their lives, they know that few of their activities are actually working in the way they used to. In the case of the wealthy, they’re not making many real deals with all their phone calls and emails, and in the case of the average worker, they’re showing up for work each day as usual, but much of what they are doing feels like “make-work” rather than truly effective activity towards a constructive outcome.

Those without any job at all are trying desperately to get their old world back on track just as fast as possible, in many cases doing the equivalent of pounding their heads against a brick wall in order to secure a position that looks something like what they are familiar with.

Paradoxically enough, in many cases these folks are still rushing, just like they used to when gainfully employed, in a vain attempt to feel productive. I watched a story on television recently about a human resources manager who lost his job a year and a half ago who now spends his stress-filled days rushing from networking meeting to networking meeting as he tries, unsuccessfully, to find a position in a company that might need his skills. It struck me that he’s so busy networking that there’s no time in his life to pay attention to what might be a more appropriate use of his skills and passions right now.

But we can never know what those new possibilities might be until we slow down a bit so we can pay attention to what’s actually happening, instead of trying to force into existence what we think should be happening. This is a different kind of world suddenly than we are familiar with, and the new opportunities are not going to look anything like what we think they’re going to. We can’t yet imagine what they are, not because we’re blind or stupid, but because we are not yet familiar with them. In most cases we don’t recognize them even when they are right in front of our noses.

So the only way to see them is to be present in whatever we’re doing, to show up in the moment and pay attention to what we are moved to explore — even though in many cases we won’t be able to understand how this activity can possibly make money for us. For right now, if what you’ve been doing hasn’t been creating the work, income, or sense of purpose that you’ve been hoping for, stop trying so hard, at least for a few days, and see what presents itself without any effort on your part. Simply pay attention to what is being placed before you, or what you feel drawn to pursue.

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself to help you see what might be in front of you that you aren’t noticing:

• What do you keep saying “no” to? (I’m not advocating anything dangerous of course — just things your reflexively discount as not worth your while, or not for you.)
• Are there people or issues that keep showing up but that you haven’t made time for?
• Has someone given you a book, video, or movie, unsolicited, that you’ve put aside until you have time to read or watch it? (Read it! Watch it!)
• Are there synchronous references to something you’ve always been intrigued by but have never made time for?

All these are prompts from your life (your Waking Dream, as I call it in The Not So Big Life) pointing the way to the nutrients for inner growth, and outer possibility.

The point is that if we’re not present in our lives, we’ll never see the opportunities that are there because they will almost certainly look nothing like what we are expecting, and we’ll be too busy doing what we think we’re supposed to be doing to notice. Our true purpose in fact has almost nothing to do with what we do, but is instead all about how we are in all that doing. When you show up completely in each moment, the nutrients for the next scene of your life are buried within those moments, and you discover that your purpose is nothing more (and nothing less) than your being there to completely experience what happens as it happens.

I can’t tell you what those nutrients are for you, but I assure you that as you pay attention to what’s actually happening, putting all your fearful projections and fruitless struggling aside, those nutrients will be there for you. It’s really incredibly simple. What you need shows up as you go about living the life that is here, rather than the one in your head. And this is where your true purpose is too, in how you are in each moment of your life, rather than in what you do for a living.

This is the root of our confusion about purpose, and perhaps, just possibly, this period of uncertainty will help us to grasp that we are in fact completely supported in living out that purpose when we show up completely in our own experiencing. Words can only point the way, but the direct experience is something entirely different, and truly transformative.

Life, when lived in presence, becomes rich beyond words, no matter the current state of the economy, or the way we make our living in the world. Our purpose lies within that presence. It’s the only place that actually is, after all — a dimensionless point through which awareness and manifestation touch, allowing the One — the collection of all points of awareness — to experience Self through its own reflection.

Photo courtesy of stuartpilbrow via Flickr

We spend a lot of time around beautifully designed products, and we spent a fair amount of time browsing the Web for inspiration for this blog, too. So we come across a lot of eye candy: photos of gorgeous work worth sharing with all of you. Today’s post is a quick round-up of some nice visuals we’ve seen recently.

Feel free to share some eye candy of your own in the comments section — your own projects, some photos you found online, anything.

A bright, airy design, tons of windows with gorgeous views, high ceilings, and a stellar location make this luxury villa (is there such a thing as a non-luxury villa?) a true work of art.

Speaking of luxury villas, when you have a stunning view, why not put it good use, right? Windows for walls is a good start.

Perhaps you’d expect some funky, modernist home design to be found in West Hollywood, but that doesn’t make these photos any less stunning. Bright green on the interior and bold shapes on the exterior make this home stand out in any neighborhood.

Don’t have stunning views or funky architecture to show off? Why not just draw some? It’s probably way less expensive than the gorgeous property, and it’d make for a better conversation piece, too!

Photos courtesy of Julia Palmer Design, Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects, AI Architects and Charlotte Mann.

This beautiful project is the third in our series of winning projects from the myMarvin Architect’s Challenge.

If you’ve ever been to Europe and visited any of the grand cathedrals there, it is hard not to feel awed by the beautiful structures people built so long ago. People continue to build houses of worship nowadays, but it isn’t often you see the large old-style churches being constructed.

In LaCrosse, Wisc., however, it is estimated that, for the first time in 50 years, a major Catholic church has been built in the classical style. The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe serves not only as a church, but as a place for a pilgrimage.

Visitors to the church may well think they are in a European cathedral, but this modern church fools the eye. Every element of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, from the nave to the fabulously detailed dome, was designed to look as if the church has always been there.

Marvin windows help flood the church with natural light. Light in The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is introduced through windows in the side aisles, clerestory windows in the nave, transepts, and sanctuary, and through the dome with its clear windows and oculus. There are twelve different custom window types at The Shrine in all shapes and sizes, each requiring their own details. Marvin’s custom capabilities helped the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe achieve the exact look desired.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s exterior was designed by Michael W. Swinghamer of River Architects in LaCrosse and the church’s interior was designed by Duncan Stroik of Duncan G. Stroik Architect in South Bend, Ind.

Several years ago, my wife and I were searching for a new home to raise our ever-expanding family. We were living in Chicago, near Wrigley Field, and had renovated our home top to bottom – but it was small. Our first thought was to move to a nearby suburb, where homes and lots were a little bigger and where the schools offered more, as well.

About this time, my wife’s Aunt Mary told us about a home in her northwest Chicago neighborhood that was going to go up for sale. The Edgebrook area of Chicago is a sturdy community with brick bungalows and Georgians with nice size lots, but I was not sold. I had spent most of my time building and renovating homes in the suburbs that we were considering and had a good feel for a few homes that would be great fixer-uppers. My wife said, Let’s just go and look and see what the home is like.

We drove up to the home, which was still owned by the original owner, a widow who had built the home with her husband in 1941. Walking up to the yellow brick home, I could tell that is was very well maintained. We knocked on the door and Mrs. Lang, the owner, welcomed us in. As I entered, I closed the 2 1/4-inch-thick door behind me, and it closed with a solid “thunk.”

I bent over immediately and whispered in my wife’s ear, “This is the house.” She quickly turned and said, “We haven’t even seen it yet.” But I knew.

As we toured the house I could see the great pride that Mrs. Lang had for her home. As we went about it, I looked at all the finishes. From the impressive front door to the interior trim, this home was built well with thick, tasteful finishes. The combination of the materials and design not only made the home look good but felt good as well.

Years ago I was given the advice that when you buy a home, look for one with charm. As a builder it is something I tried to bring into every project. Whether you are building a new home or adding on, spend some time to consider some of the things you will touch on a daily basis in that home. The front door is the first point of contact for you and your guests. Spend a little more on the thickness, the design, the hardware that goes into that feature.

The same is true for interior doors, door hardware, and the quality of the trim around it. And if there is a banister, make sure it is the right size, feels smooth to the touch, and feels sturdy as you either ascend or descend the stairs.

To me the feel of a home is just as important as the look.