Canadian Home Workshop

It was about the beginning of February... I was at my drafting table dreaming of warmer days and the season to come. I was drawing away on a landscape plan for a customer... placing a pool in the correct position for them when my phone rings and it is the editor for Canadian Home Workshop asking me if I wanted to participate in a story they were doing. Now there is a call you don't expect to get every day!

The idea was to have me create 3 landscape plans centered around 3 themes and make the drawings look pretty. The question was...would I be interested in doing that? My answer was very short and direct! Yes!!!!...as would be the case with most any landscape designer worth his salt...when presented with a chance to display themselves in a magazine...who would say no?
So here it is folks... in this months current issue of Canadian Home Workshop...it is actually the April/May 2010 issue... which can be found in stores now or ordered online here!

Anyway, after my phone conversation, I tossed my blackberry on the table and went back to measuring my pool spacing to ensure proper setback dimensions according to the Town of Aurora, Ontario. I kept looking back at my phone and wondering if I really just had the conversation I had....first with the editor and then a second one with the art director...or was I actually sound asleep and dreaming of a life that was not mine!?!

When I sat down to draw the 3 plans, it seemed like kind of a fuzzy dream to me as the drawings were just like any other landscape plan I would do...only I was the client for each of the three backyard plans! Anyway, I just drew from my experience with the many clients I have designed for and created the concepts you will see in the magazine article...

It was fun!...lol...it was a lot of fun...and a lot of hard work too!!!....not to mention I was drawing these in the comfort of my workspace, watching Team Canada play Hockey...listening to a crackling fire in the wood burning stove while the snow lay on the ground outside.

When I opened my mail up yesterday...there it was...my hard work along side my name printed in ink... in a magazine seen across Canada...not only was my stuff in there, but my good friend and colleague, Lawrence Winterburn of Gardenstructure.com has one of his deck designs featured on the front cover of this issue along with a few showcased photos contained in a couple of the articles within this issue. He is someone I would gladly share the spotlight with on any given day....

Just wanted to say that the people at Canadian Home Workshop were a great bunch to work with and wanted to thank them for this opportunity!