“It is a great art to saunter” – Henry David Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1841. What a great place to take a walk! Blessed with an abundance of natural beauty, Central Virginia is flush with parks, trails and wilderness areas that beckon fitness buffs and nature lovers of all ages and experience levels, from families […]
Home owners preparing to sell their house often ask what repairs they should do to make it more saleable without spending more than they will get back at closing. Several variables such as the seller’s motivation, budget and time frame impact this decision. However, there are some general guidelines that apply to most situations. The […]
The town of Scottsville, home of Albemarle’s first county seat, is located at the intersection of Routes 20 and 6 straddling the three counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, and Buckingham. Though set in the midst of a rich agricultural area, it is part of the Charlottesville SMSA and offers an easy commute to jobs there. It […]
Few things make a bigger impact on your home’s appearance—whether new construction or remodeling—than the siding you choose. Not only can the right siding make your place look great, it protects from damage from wind, weather, humidity, and insects. Unlike the Three Little Pigs, few people in Central Virginia make their homes of straw or […]
The July issue of Abode is on stands now! Here’s what you’ll find inside: A Q&A with architect Julie Dixon, whose firm Rosney Co. designed this year’s Southern Living Idea House at Bundoran Farm. The 250 interchange (better known as Meadow Creek Parkway) was not without opposition, but the finished project is a success thanks […]
You know you have a special site when you hire a landscape designer and his primary goal is “Don’t mess it up.” That’s what John Meaney told himself when he contemplated the charge from clients Shahir and Nancy Kassam-Adams, who wanted to add a pool and poolhouse to their Nelson County property. The 51-acre site […]
Even in a well-loved city like Charlottesville, there are still hidden gems. Lynn Valentine had her eye on one that was just three blocks from her home on Park Street. “I’d walked by this property for years,” she said. It wasn’t the house—a modest brick Cape Cod overgrown with ivy—that attracted her. It was the […]
Born and raised in Charlottesville, renowned interior designer Bunny Williams didn’t start her career with a formal education, but rather with a job at prestigious Manhattan design firm Parish-Hadley—a job that lasted 22 years and helped build the foundation for Bunny Williams, Inc. Since starting the company in 1988, she’s built a bit of an […]
For years, we knew we wanted open concept living spaces—the kitchen spilling into the dining area, spilling into the sitting room —but we didn’t necessarily know why. It just felt right, and that was enough. Turns out, what we were working toward was universal design, a concept of making spaces usable by as many different […]
Most architecture, by nature, wants to be noticed. But sometimes design aims to fly under the radar—to seamlessly blend with its surroundings. That’s a tall order when the project in question is a 16.3-acre, multi-million-dollar roadway interchange that helped inspire a decade or more of dogged citizen protests (not to mention legal action) before it […]