Despite having a thriving West Coast career as a designer, builder and teacher, being the founder of the LA Box Collective (a group of furniture makers committed to environmentally conscious design and production) and living just two blocks from the beach, he says it was an easy choice.

If you haven’t been, you should go, because Ladew, in Monkton, Md., is both grand and whimsically self-mocking; it captures the essential pleasure of a garden that is laughing out loud.

Even if Asian screen art is not your thing, the degree of refinement, composition, movement and narrative in these national treasures of Japan will leave you breathless.

Tomato and pepper plants that have been hardened off can be planted out. Wait two weeks before sowing cucumber and squash seeds. The soil is still too cold for rapid germination and growth.

Herbaceous plants such as stinging nettle and sheep sorrel offer up their mineral-rich stores. Do these wild treasures really unkink the digestive system as if it were a stored hose? Will a salad of them flush the liver of toxins, as their proponents assure us? Who knows? But when it comes to vitamins and minerals, I’ll bet they hold their own against garden powerhouses such as spinach and collards. Sure, I have these domestic crops growing happily in my home plot. But it’s fun to go out and gather those wilder greens when they’re still young and tender, and taste their best.

Editing is key in designer Sharon Kleinman’s approach. By consolidating furniture and emphasizing texture over patterns, she makes the room feel cozy and less cluttered.

Retailers such as Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel and Restoration Hardware have made interior design affordable and accessible, but they are routinely dismissed for the same reason. Design-conscious shoppers often turn up their noses at the chains, deeming their wares too common and not special enough.

But their happiness will likely be short-lived. Domino Quick Fixes, a special edition released last week and available though July 16, is mostly recycled material from the publication’s original four-year run. Another bummer: It costs $11.

We don’t have water issues or problems with bugs. The space is large, it gets natural light and the finished portion will eventually be the perfect playroom for our daughter.

At just 400 square feet, the Old Town Alexandria storefront is small, though Song’s range of offerings is anything but.

This fall, after a year-long renovation, a 19th-century commercial property will become a store and studio for Carter, one of the city’s top-tier interior designers. The property includes a two-story building at 1320 Ninth St. NW, parts of which are pre-Civil War, and a carriage house in back facing cobblestone Naylor Court. The rebuilding is painstaking, using architectural remnants and salvaged timbers to restore the structures.

The American icons are subjects of two Andy Warhol screen prints in the Goldens’ home. Oakley’s and Custer’s vivid reds, yellows and bluish greens inspired the Goldens and their color consultant, Jean Molesworth Kee, to go bold for the walls.