It Really starts feeling like Spring when I bring out the Lawn Furniture and Fill Planting Containers

Posted on April 25, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

IMG_0290IMG_0291 Last week, with the nightly temperatures rising a bit and days looking to not be that cold, I decided it was time to put out the lawn furniture and the more delicate garden ornaments (accessories). It is surprising that with just a few hours work and some lawn furniture, garden ornaments and planting containers, how quickly my property was transformed from the ho-hum that I see during Winter, to a much more visually pleasing sight for my eyes to view, and I didn’t even have to plant up my containers with late Spring and Summer annuals to have something to look at.

Now let’s look at the first photos, the cover photos for this post. Continue reading →

Posted in Fred's Garden at Whimsey Hill House, Garden Design Principles, The Spring Garden, The Summer Garden | 4 Comments

A Garden Tour of My Property. It might be Spring, but You should be thinking Winter Interest when Planning your Garden

Posted on April 12, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

Evergreens provide Year-Round interest in the Garden, Plant them First

Evergreens provide Year-Round interest in the Garden, Plant them First

After getting over a Winter here in upstate New York that was snowier and colder than recent years past, everyone I know is soo glad it’s finally getting warmer and signs of Spring are showing up. All the garden folk that I’ve come across just can’t wait to be outside to start the preparation for the growing season soon to come.

It is still much too early to plant annuals, and perennials are just starting to show signs of coming back to life, but when the ground has warmed up and dried out a bit more, evergreens and deciduous bushes and trees can be planted in the garden.

When a person is thinking about gardening, especially here in the north-east, they should not just put attention onto annuals or perennials that are seen for 5 or 6 months a year, but think about evergreens in the garden and around their property that provide something to look at 365 days a year.

Here at Whimsey Hill House, I’ve put a lot of thought into placing all different shapes, sizes, colors and heights of evergreens and deciduous bushes and trees on my property so I have something to look at, out through every window in my house, or while outdoors, during the coldest and darkest days of Winter when nothing is growing. This post is a garden tour of my property, right after the beginning of the Spring cleanup, which shows how I’ve placed evergreens on my land. The evergreens are the stars of my garden from November until almost May, but as perennials start to emerge and annuals are added to the garden beds, they have a way of stepping back and going from star to supporting cast. Continue reading →

Posted in Bushes, Shrubs, Trees, Fred's Garden at Whimsey Hill House, Garden Design Principles, The Spring Garden, The Winter Garden | 2 Comments

The color BLUE, the Next Decorating Trend

Posted on March 30, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

Move Over Radiant Orchid, BLUE is Easier to Decorate with!

Move Over Radiant Orchid, BLUE is Easier to Decorate with!

Recently I was looking through all the different “shelter” magazines at my local super market, and I think I spotted what might be the next interior decorating trend. Every magazine I picked up had the color BLUE, as either the predominate color shown on the cover of the magazine, or BLUE was a focal point / major factor in one of the homes featured in that month’s issue. Continue reading →

Posted in Interior Decorating Principles, Picking Paint Colors Interior / Exterior / Front Door / Roof | 10 Comments

Picking Paint Colors for a Small House, Condominium or Apartment

Posted on March 10, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

Neutral Paint Colors can Trick the Eye into thinking Your Home is Larger than it really is.

Neutral Paint Colors can Trick the Eye into thinking Your Home is Larger than it really is.

Buying your first home, or moving into your first apartment should be a fun and exciting period in your life. One of the first things that you will most likely want to do is pick new paint colors, and change the colors of the rooms so they say you. Even the slightest color change, because you choose it, makes all the difference psychologically. (If renting contact your landlord to see if changing paint colors is OK).

Picking paint colors for a small place or open concept spaces is really quite simple. You want to pick colors that make the spaces look airy and larger than they probably are, by tricking the eye into thinking there is more space in your new place than there really is. Continue reading →

Posted in Interior Decorating Principles, Picking Paint Colors Interior / Exterior / Front Door / Roof | 6 Comments

Today Fred Gonsowski Garden Home.com reached the point of having 500,000 Page Views/Articles Read

Posted on February 21, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

img351 img358Today February 21, 2014 at 8:01PM, Fred Gonsowski Garden Home.com reached another milestone; having had 500,015 page views/ articles read. When I first started this blog in October of 2010, I had no idea or premonition of ever getting to this point. The reason I started this blog was not that I liked or wanted to write, but to let out a lot of things about decorating and gardening that I had inside of me, and not that many places to apply.

For my followers and casual readers who don’t know about it, WordPress is how I get an article, drawings, and sometimes photos from my home in upstate New York out onto the internet for you to find. WordPress is kind of like a middleman that I upload articles to, and through them they end up on the internet / domain. WordPress is quite a remarkable entity. They do all the counting of articles read by my readers, and provide me daily with the numbers and even countries across the world where readers came in from. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

How to Pick the Perfect GRAY PAINT…. A Popular Color choice of the Moment

Posted on February 15, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

The color Gray, one of the most popular interior decorating trends of the moment, you see it on everything from paint, fabric, carpeting and on painted wood furniture.

The color Gray, one of the most popular interior decorating trends of the moment, you see it on everything from paint, fabric, carpeting and on painted wood furniture.

If you look through interior decorating magazines, go to show houses, or even watch reality shows on TV, you will see gray interiors everywhere. Gray, be it light and silvery or dark and slate toned has taken the place of the colors gold, red and green which for years were used constantly. I think with the national obsession for all things that look Pottery Barn, gray has become the perfect new neutral color for a person who wants something different from the classic colors of the past.

Looking at the different colors of gray.. Continue reading →

Posted in Interior Decorating Principles, Picking Paint Colors Interior / Exterior / Front Door / Roof | 15 Comments

Arranging Furniture in a 12 foot wide by 24 foot long Living Room

Posted on February 5, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome
Some ideas for arranging furniture in a long and narrow living room with many entrance doors, archways and windows

Some ideas for arranging furniture in a long and narrow living room with many entrance doors, arch ways and windows

If you possibly are the inhabitant of a row house or town house that was built somewhere around 1890, you could now have a living room that measures about 12 feet wide by 24 feet long. Your living room, back in the day, most likely started out as two 12 foot by 12 foot rooms. One of the rooms was a formal parlor and the other one was a living room. Those two spaces were probably once divided by a non-load bearing wall with pocket doors, or there was an archway. In one or both of the rooms could have been, or still is a wooden or marble mantelpiece, which is a decorative non-working fireplace. I have found that many of my readers have rooms like that which also have many doors and windows cutting up the wall spaces, which makes it a challenge arranging furniture. For this post I’ve come up with 12 possible ways of arranging furniture in the space, and I hope one or more of them you can apply to your home. Continue reading →

Posted in Arranging Living Room Furniture, Interior Decorating Principles | 29 Comments

A look at the Hand Painted Doors here in my House

Posted on January 23, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome
Hand Painted Trompe l'oeil Doors add visual interest to my Home

Hand Painted Trompe l’oeil Doors add visual interest to my Home

I love my house, but don’t love the hollow core doors that came with it. I live in a 1950’s split level styled house that has big spacious rooms, tons of natural light that streams in through many large windows, and my house has a combination of both cozy and airy spaces. The 1950’s were also a time when builders of mid-century modern styled buildings were into minimal ornamentation when it came to things like kitchen cabinets, woodwork, crown molding, fireplace mantels, and both interior and exterior door styles.

Over the years, here at Whimsey Hill House, I’ve come to realize that my soul needs craves details, ornamentation and color to feel more at peace. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

It’s time to Buy / Order Seeds for Spring Planting

Posted on January 15, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

This year try growing some Annuals from Seed, and enjoy their Flowers all Summer long

This year try growing some Annuals from Seed, and enjoy their Flowers all Summer long

The holidays have come and gone and now is the time for avid gardeners to start thinking about what they want to plant in their gardens this coming Spring. The anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday seems to coincide with all the big box stores like Home Depot, Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, Kmart, etc, along with local garden centers and even supermarkets, in my part of upstate New York, putting out tempting displays of seeds to inspire new and seasoned gardeners, giving them hope for things to come during the cold, dark, and barren days of Winter.

Where to buy seeds .. Continue reading →

Posted in The Spring Garden | Leave a comment

Matching the Right shaped End Table with a Table Lamp

Posted on January 12, 2014 by fredgonsowskigardenhome

Picking the right styled table lamp to go with your end table

Picking the right styled table lamp to go with your end table

This post is the second in a series of two articles which covers the pairing of an end table and a table lamp.

In the first post for this series, Looking at the Different Shapes of Lamps Bases (click here to read that post), I went over the four different styles all lamp bases fall into, no matter if they are country, traditional, transitional or contemporary styled. This post is all about looking at the end tables you will be placing lamps on, and studying visual weights. Continue reading →

Posted in Interior Decorating Principles, Lighting | 10 Comments