Sheilah Michaels credits her father, a builder who made her a toolbox when she was 4 years old and often took her to job sites, with planting the design seed early. Over the years, Michaels’ passion never wavered, and she’s spent more than 20 years working as an interior designer, buyer, and visual merchandising manager. […]
Sheilah Michaels credits her father, a builder who made her a toolbox when she was 4 years old and often took her to job sites, with planting the design seed early. Over the years, Michaels’ passion never wavered, and she’s spent more than 20 years working as an interior designer, buyer, and visual merchandising manager. […]
When Sheilah Michaels was asked to create a child’s bedroom for last spring’s Shelter for Help in Emergency’s Design House, she turned to the pages of some of her favorite children’s books for inspiration. “I wanted to capture the enchanting images from The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, and The Lion, the Witch and […]
Anyone who’s been on a house hunt knows closets are a relatively modern development. And if you’re into vintage homes, you’ll probably have to compromise on built-in storage space. “Houses that are 100 years old, back then people didn’t really have closets,” said architect Kate Tabony, lead designer for Charlottesville-based Alloy Workshop. “Maybe it’s a […]
Allison Mitchell helps people sort through and systematize the keeping of their stuff. But really, she says, they’re redefining self-love. “The irony for my clients is that they fear losing something, so they keep everything, then they lose the something they really wanted to keep,” said Mitchell, a Charlottesville-based organizing consultant for Richmond firm Abundance […]
It is commonplace for architects to speak of “bringing the outside in”—usually via plentiful glass and a toolkit of other tricks. When Richard Williams describes his firm’s design process on a Rappahannock County home, that familiar goal—connecting inhabitants to the landscape—takes on an unusual cast. “On our first site visit,” he said of his clients, […]
To Cole Burrell, landscape designer, a garden is an extension of a house. “There’s a million styles and a million vocabularies,” he said, “but none makes any sense unless it makes sense with the house.” One of his Albemarle projects illustrates that principle with a garden that seems to spring organically from the spirit of […]
As a University of Virginia undergraduate, Jeff Bushman majored briefly in science, thinking he’d one day attend medical school. An architecture class put the brakes on that plan, though, and the future Bushman Dreyfus Architects principal’s course was set. He recently spoke to us about influential teachers at UVA, why consilience inspires him, and the […]
“I don’t know why, but design is pretty much all I think about all the time. Much to my wife’s dismay.” Master woodworker and furniture maker Blaise Gaston laughed, fully aware that the affection he lavishes on his work is the sort many reserve for first loves. Which, in a way, it is. “I remember […]
When Bill Hamilton and his team decided to remodel Hamiltons’ at First and Main in 2011, the flooring was a potential stumbling block. Hamilton wanted to preserve the character of the original restaurant space, built in 1996, and the wooden floors were an important part of the aesthetic. But they needed work. Options for new […]