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The Father of California Landscape Designs

Today’s elaborate and stylish high-end landscape designs first appeared in affluent areas of Southern California at the beginning of the 1930’s. An educated landscape architect with experience in the popular garden styles of Europe in this era, Thomas Church, began a landscape design firm in downtown San Francisco and quickly became a household name in Southern California outdoor planning.

During his 45 year career in California landscape design, Church created more than 2,000 custom garden designs in some of the most prosperous areas and developments of Orange County, Los Angeles, and Riverside, all during the prime of modern architectural development. These functional, yet beautiful, outdoor living spaces resulted in a trend that is still growing in popularity across the nation of extending the living space of a home into the openness of nature.

The Many Faces of this Unique Design Style

The homes of Southern California are some of the most remarkable structures in the world and represent a variety of unique architectural styles. California landscape designs complement these fine homes with carefully selected plants, materials, and accessories to create a central theme that blends outdoor charm with sophisticated style for a magnificent outdoor living area.

While most of the various landscape designs seen across Southern California possess a rustic, Old World appearance, there are also classy, formal garden styles that reflect a more contemporary atmosphere. The influence of the European Mediterranean can also be seen in many California garden styles.

With so many different garden styles and influences seen in the landscape designs of of this area, there is one common thread among them all. Each and every California landscape design is carefully planned to reflect the relaxed, natural lifestyle of the warm Mediterranean coast while complementing the style of the most lavish homes.

These Mediterranean styled designs are simple, but sophisticated, functional, as well as ornate, and these outdoor living spaces are truly designed for outdoor living.

Elements of a California style garden may include:

Natural accessories, like unfinished furniture or terra cotta planters Colorful cushions, patio ware, lighting, and flower pots, with bright, vivid colors Simple materials, like bark, gravel, and stone, accent water features and create walkways

Because of the wonderful diversity throughout Southern California, the landscape designs are also unique but they are all carefully planned to make outdoor living at home convenient, relaxing, and a beautiful part of your residence. With so many different garden styles to choose from, it is often best to employ the services of an experienced California landscape design firm.

If you’ve been considering changing you’re home’s landscaping, don’t forget to consider your family’s lifestyle as you create your initial plans. Everyone’s routines and daily activities need to be considered before you make any significant changes.

For instance, if you put a flowerbed or shrub in the middle of your backyard, will that hinder your children from playing various games? You want to encourage your kids to play at home and to invite their friends to join them, so it’s important not to do anything that will adversely affect the space where they usually play.

Another example would be planting a shrub along a route that someone in the family likes to walk on a regular basis. It can be something as simple as the route to the mailbox, or something as elaborate as a path that someone likes to walk every afternoon to commune with nature. Either way, planting something that alters their enjoyment of that simple routine wouldn’t be a good idea.

Consider Benefits in Relation to Expense

You may also want to consider what adding a particular landscaping element would do to enhance your family’s living experience. Would adding a hot tub to a proposed new deck be something the family would use enough to justify its expense, or would it be enough just to add the deck and use it for barbecuing and getting together with friends?

Plan Ahead

You might also think about future additions to the family when making your landscaping plans. For example, even though your own children have grown up and moved out of the house, you might think about adding a sandbox to your landscaping project, so your grandchildren will have a place to play when they visit over the weekend.

As you think about what you might like to incorporate into your new landscaping project, it’s a good idea to start keeping a folder where you can stuff pictures or ideas. You might also want to keep a journal, jotting down ideas of possible additions that come to you from time to time. When you finally sit down to create your formal plan, you can dig these out, and you may be surprised at some of the things that caught your imagination as you mulled over your landscaping project.

Regardless of what you finally decide to include in your landscape remodeling project, it’s important that everyone in the household be considered. It’s their home, too, and they have the right to be given the maximum amount of opportunity to enjoy it.

Does your little girl take after Sleeping Beauty and Snow White? Does she dream of being Cinderella at the ball or Belle whose love transforms a brutish monster into a handsome prince? Does she wish to be under the sea like Ariel or soaring on a magic carpet ride like Jasmine? If your little princess wants to really be a princess – she can be! All it takes is a little creative remodeling of her royal chambers, and your daughter can feel like the next in Disney’s illustrious princess line.

It All Starts with the Bed

The central focus of all princess’s quarters is where she lays her weary and pretty little head – her bed. A little princess’s bed may be either a canopy bed or a four poster bed, or both. And that’s just the start of what royal magic you can conjure up with the power of custom theme beds.

Maybe the best way to build your little princess’s perfect fantasy bed is as her very own castle, equipped with moat, drawbridge, turrets, and all. You can further flesh out your little girl’s own private Magic Kingdom by giving the walls the appearance of stone-work with long, sinuous vines climbing up the sides. Then, to complete the picture and really make it a bed that’s fit for a perfect little princess you can add billowy fabrics, soft pillows, silky bedding, and lacey borders.

A princess castle bed is just one possibility of a custom theme bed for creating a fantasy Disney bedroom. Another option is a custom theme bed in the shape and design of a horse-drawn carriage.

It’s a Colorful Life

For the ideal Disney princess color scheme, consider pink with accents of white. And gold or silvery borders add an evocative touch of wealth and fame. Not only will these colors highlight any custom princess theme bed, but they will also brighten up the entire bedroom. By simply painting princess-themed murals on her walls, you can easily and affordably evoke complete the Disney-esque fairy tale picture.

Making your Little Princess Look and Feel Like a Queen

Every little princess needs to look her best, and that requires a place to keep her collection of beautiful clothing neat and clean, and a place to do her hair and make even prettier her already-pretty face. So, in the way of furniture for a Disney princess themed bedroom, you cannot forget a spacious wardrobe and an ample dressing table with a nice sized mirror. These two pieces are the bare necessities of furniture for making a custom Disney princess bedroom complete. But, if you have a wardrobe and dressing table and mirror built into the custom theme bed, you don’t have to go out and buy those pieces separately.

All little girls reside, at least in part, in a world of their imagination, a world inspired by the fairy tales and storybooks they encounter every day. Fulfilling her fantasy of being one of those princesses that she reads about in books, hears about in stories, and sees in movies, is the best way you can help her bring those wondrous tales to life.

Princess Castle Beds

Every princess in every fairy tale has her own private chambers where she dreams about life in her magic kingdom. To make your little girl feel like a princess, then, all you really need to do is give her such a bed. Providing such royal treatment is as simple as finding a qualified custom children’s bed designer and introducing her to the vivid fantasy life of your little princess.

Adding elements of luxury to her princess castle bed will only delight her the more. This can include a canopy bed, a loft bed, big plush pillows and silky, satiny custom bedding.

Evoke the Images of Her Favorite Storybook Princesses

Give her a magic mirror on one wall of her custom castle bed so she can fawn over her pretty face – “the fairest one of all”. Give her a settee that’s as decadent as Cinderalla’s horse-and-buggy and she can always feel like she’s on her way to a fancy ball. Line the floors of her custom bed with elaborate carpet and throw rugs and she can imagine she’s Princess Jasmine “on a magic carpet ride” with her handsome Aladdin. Bedeck the custom castle bed in colorful shells and coral and starfish and she can imagine herself Princess Arial relishing in life “under the sea”.

Make-Believe Worlds, Real Life Play

Pretending that she lives in a storybook fairy-tale world is only half fun; acting it out in her environment is the rest. And you can help make this possible too by making her princess castle bed more than just a place to lay her weary head at night but one in which she frolic and play during the day as well.

Adding slides, climbing walls, swings, tunnels to crawl through, and other design elements that she can enjoy will only heighten that sense that she’s living in a world of her own imagining. And all of this can be built straight into any custom princess castle bed.

It’s a Colorful Life

Rounding out the fairy tale fantasy will be vivid, vibrant colors that sparkle and shine, like the light of her imagination. Find out her favorite colors and then, with a can of paint and a few yards of fabric, you can complete the image of being the heroine of her very own fairy tale living in her very own custom princess castle bed.

It’s very important in Feng Shui to have painted color on your walls in your home and office. Even if you’re renting you might be able to make a deal with your landlord that you’ll paint the walls back to white when you leave.

Feng Shui is about bringing aspects of nature into your living and working environments. I’m sure you can’t disagree that our world is a colorful place. Just think of green grass, blue-green oceans, colorful flowers, the vibrant yellow sun and so on.

It’s great to bring these amazing colors of nature indoors and paint them on your walls. Color has been known to improve our moods, stimulate our minds, increase our productivity at work, and even create better physical and mental health. Since color is connected to our energy (chi), the application of color is one of the important adjustments used in Feng Shui.

If you’re afraid of painting colors on your walls, start slowly. Add an accent wall to a room and then gradually add more and more color to each room of your home or workspace. Adding color to your environment will give you a colorful life!

Here are 6 color tips.

1. Red stimulates the senses and is associated with strength, joy, motivation and love. This is an exciting and spirited decorating color. It’s used to improve blood circulation, the nervous system, to treat anemia and paralysis. Red is a good color to help you feel grounded and secure. Reds must also be used carefully. It can generate anger and may be disturbing to those with mental health problems.

2. Yellow can stimulate joy & wisdom, and is a color that encourages flexibility and adaptability. It can lift your mood, inspire you, and improve your sense of well-being. Yellow has a positive effect on the stomach, intestines, liver, gall bladder, adrenal glands and middle back. This color is also great for helping with releasing fears and anger. Yellow is also the Feng Shui health color.

3. Orange is a happy, social color that inspires creativity, ambition, and energetic activity. If you want to perk up your love life, paint your bedroom a shade of orange. Orange is used to treat a range of problems including lower intestines, kidneys, ovaries, and lower back. This color also helps with creating clear personal boundaries and aids in releasing childhood issues and trauma.

4. Green reminds us of nature and can be both restful and energizing. It’s closely linked to healing, and color therapists use it to soothe pain. It can detoxify the body and bring balance to negative and positive energies. It also balances the body, mind and spirit. Green relieves tension in the blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. It oversees the upper back, chest, shoulders, arms, hands and lungs. Green is the color to heal all physical and emotional issues related to the heart.

5. Blue symbolizes inspiration, peace, and tranquility. The color blue is used to treat tension, fear and insomnia. Blue will reduce inflammation. Sky blue is the color associated with throat chakra. It’s frequently used for problems occurring in the laryngitis, sore throat, tonsillitis, toothaches, etc. Blues also stimulate communication and spiritual understanding. Research also suggests it may be effective in guided imagery therapies to reduce pain levels. Blue has been used successfully in mental institutions to calm patients.

6. Purple/Violet is associated with connecting us to our higher self. Purples are calming and soothing so this color can create the right atmosphere for meditation. It’s a color that oversees the brain, skull, and pituitary functioning. Violet is a beneficial color for psychological disorders such as schizophrenia and manic depression. It also helps sciatica and the spleen. Purple is a royal color and is associated with wisdom and dignity. Purple is also the Feng Shui color for wealth and prosperity.