Velvet & Linen

a windsor smith / steve giannetti collaboration featured on the cover of veranda magazine!

2013-06-19T09:10:23-07:00

During his career, Steve has had the good fortune to collaborate with talented interior designers. A few days ago, we found out that one of Steve's recent collaborations with Interior Designer Windsor Smith will be featured on the front cover of the next issue of Veranda Magazine!

Thank you to Veranda Magazine for giving me permission to share these images from the article with you!

Steve and Windsor worked together with their clients Shawn and Serena Levy to renovate a 1970's home in Mandeville Canyon in Los Angeles.

They added the trellis outside the breakfast room to create an outdoor dining space.

The entire kitchen was renovated to include a large working island and full height open shelves, accessed by a library ladder.

The kitchen is open to this serene, casual family space.

This is my favorite room in the house! Windsor did a fantastic job creating a living room that is modern, casual, elegant, and classic.

all photography by Melanie Acevedo

Steve would like to thank Windsor Smith for this beautiful collaboration. He would also like to thank Shawn and Serena Levy for being such fantastic clients.

Thank you to Paul Morrow at Morrow and Morrow Construction for a great building experience.

A special Thank You to Veranda Magazine for featuring this project!

Brooke

patina farm update: the chicken coop...

2013-06-10T19:54:45-07:00

Welcome back to Patina Farm!

We are still pretty dusty around here, but the gardens are moving along.

I thought you might enjoy seeing how the chicken coop is progressing...

My ladies are happy to be dust free today... The Hanley Gold gravel now covers the floor of the coop. I've dusted the gravel with food grade diotomaceous earth. D.E. helps to keep the gravel and chicken droppings dry and pest free.

We installed a ceiling fan (from Lamps Plus) to keep the gals cool on those hot Ojai days. Hens take "dust baths", so I will be filling the galvanized tub with dust and D.E. Using the D.E. on their bodies keeps the mites at bay.

You can also see the grape vines in this image. As they grow, they will provide treats as well as shade for the hens.

My hens love to keep busy. They enjoy digging in the dirt in the pots, hopping in and out of the coop (from My Pet Chicken), and jumping up on the various wood stools. I also give them corn, lettuce as well as their chicken feed to nibble on during the day.

The potting area is on the other side of the coop. There are two large storage closets on either side of the sink to keep the chicken supplies safe from predators.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our coop! As always, please feel free to ask questions in the comment section of this post.

Happy Week!

Brooke

patina farm update: a few vignettes while we move in...

2013-06-02T12:50:39-07:00

Hello! Well, we have officially moved into Patina Farm! It's still a dust factory outside, but the rose garden is coming along...

Inside, I've unpacked most of the boxes. Because this is our own house, we can take our time to decorate over the next year or so. As I try to explain to my clients, if you want your house to look collected over time, it needs to be...collected over time!

Here are a few vignettes so far...

Steve and I use the breakfast area every morning.

The mantel is the perfect place to store all of my breadboards. A pair of our Kate chairs work perfectly with the oval table I purchased from my friend, Sara Wardrip, at C'est la Vie Antiques.

A small French Pine chair sits next to the door to my storage closet in the Mud Room.

This morning, I shared this image of my Master Bedroom mantel on Instagram.

The entire family is so excited to be a part of the Ojai community now. We took advantage of the Ojai Farmers' Market this morning. I purchased a small bouquet of lavender and some delicious goat cheese!

We will be continuing the gardens this week, and I am also starting to focus on furnishing the bedrooms that just have mattresses at the moment.

I hope you have a lovely week!

Brooke

patina farm update: grace design associates landscape collaboration...

2013-05-24T06:11:54-07:00

So sorry for my absence! We are in the thick of our the landscape installation at Patina Farm!

Although Steve and I had a strong vision of Patina Farm, we knew that there was more that we could learn about landscape design.

One of Steve's original drawings of our garden...

It was a few years ago that we first visited our friends Penelope and Adam Bianchi's home. After experiencing their gorgeous property, we knew that there was only one person we wanted to help us with our landscape.

Penny collaborated with Margie Grace of Grace Design Associates, to create something spectacular!

Penny envisioned a naturalistic garden... I was stunned when I saw the pictures of this property before Penny and Margie did their magic... it was empty! What a transformation.

It's almost impossible to believe that this garden didn't always exist!

There was no pond here when Penny and Adam bought this property, but Penny somehow knew that there needed to be a pond in this very spot... and she was right! As soon as they started digging, it filled with water. Years later a visitor told Penny that she was so happy that Penny had replaced the original pond... there had actually been a pond right there but it had been filled years before.

Penny and Adam's property is now officially a backyard wildlife habitat! To read more about their property, please visit Penny's blog! You will love her stories. She's an amazing designer/mentor/gift in my life!

After meeting Margie Grace for the first time, I knew she needed to be part of Patina Farm. She is just as magical as Penny. So creative and a great collaborator. The first task she had for me was to go to Otto and Sons in Filmore to select my roses. Have you ever been to Otto and Sons? I highly recommend a visit!

I selected reliable and and gorgeous white Iceberg Rose vines for the front fence...

Several Eden Rose vines for the kitchen garden trellis and garages...

Two aromatic Pearly Gates vines will cover the trellis outside our Master Bedroom...

The delicious peach color Polka will welcome visitors at our front gate!

There will also be a variety of David Austin Roses filling my rose garden.

As installation day grew closer, Margie and I set up a meeting to select a native no mow grass that would provide the basis for our "grassy country road" driveway. After reviewing the options, Margie and I decided that Native Bentgrass was the grass for us. According to the S & S Seed website, Bentgrass is drought tolerant, only grows to 6" to 12" and does well in sun and partial shade.

We decided to take a short road trip to The Farm Cart in Carpinteria to see the Bentgrass is person...

After our visit to the Farm Cart, we were convinced that the native Bentgrass had the perfect texture, color and personality for Patina Farm (bonus: we bought some great organic produce from the Farm Cart too!).

While Margie and I were in Carpinteria, we spent some time visiting a couple of nurseries, selecting several varieties of lavender for Patina Farm...

We also chose this Nikko Hydrangea for the shadier areas.

This week, the plant material started to arrive...

A huge truck load of roses filled the courtyard...

they just kept coming!

Many of the white Floribunda rose bushes will stay in the courtyard.

Kalie, Margie's design associate, not only helps with the design of the garden. She knows what to do on that Dingo..

Once the truck was unloaded, we began to layout the plants around the property. We are planning to plant a flow of Wistringea around the garage "barns", surrounding the Eden rose vines around the window.

The Edens will also cover the trellis by the kitchen garden. Espalier apples will grow between each vine. Champagne grape vines will climb the chicken coop.

These are my Pearly Gates vines. They will be placed on an iron trellis outside of our bedroom...

A few interesting garden elements will be scattered around Patina Farm.

Our private garden, off of our master bathroom, will be filled with blue Nikko Hydrangeas.

Believe it or not, one day soon this will be our grassy country road!

Meanwhile inside the house, we are cleaning in preparation for our move next week. Nick's shelves are ready for his sneaker collection!

Leila's paneled closet wall was painted this week. The color is a color match from an antique Swedish piece.

I took some time out of the sun to unpack my dishes. The fill my gorgeous French cabinet from M. Naeve.

I unloaded a slew of my old books and stacked them on my office book shelves for now.

That's it for now. I'm off to Patina Farm again this morning to continue creating the garden with Margie Grace and her fantastic team. I'll have more to share at the beginning of the week. If you want to see a few images before my next post, follow VelvetandLinen on Instagram!

Until then, please feel free to ask questions in the comment section of this post.

Have a great Memorial Day!!!

Brooke