An Enlightened approach to pool design, The Swimming Pool matches superb aesthetics with the best of today’s most innovative building materials for the ultimate guide to building your backyard retreat.  Renowned landscape designer Martha Baker explores four popular styles- Romantic, Modern, Classic, and Rustic- and details the key elements that help to create a complete look.  She provides ideas for personalizing elements to match your individual taste and accommodating practical needs.  Leading you on a guided tour of exclusive international locales featuring pools with many different looks and styles, she offers a wealth of advice on:

Identifying the right design style to complement your

    property

Siting your pool and selecting the best pool shape

Creating poolside cooking and dining areas

Choosing furniture that epitomizes the art of relaxation

Landscaping to integrate your pool with your home and

    property

Pinpointing the best accessories to pull it all together

Reminding us that pool design should be infused with a blend of fantasy and reality, Martha Baker features a seductively elegant romantic pool that conjures the image of a Spanish courtyard; and infinity pool that takes its cue from island traditions; perched on a hillside overlooking a tropical harbor; and a highly sophisticated modern pool topped with playful, oversized sculptures.  Authoritative and packed with more than 250 gorgeous photographs, The Swimming Pool opens up a world of unprecedented pool design.

In the summer months and year-round in warmer climates,

Americans love spending time outdoors.  More and more, people are treating the outdoor spaces on their properties as true extensions of their homes, turning porches, pools, patios, decks, and gardens into outdoor living spaces that serve the same functions as indoor rooms.  In The Outdoor Living Room:  Stylish Ideas for Porches, Patios, and Pools, acclaimed author Martha Baker offers more than forty-five striking examples of this enlightened approach to outdoor decorating. 

    The Outdoor Living Room is divided into six chapters, each representing a specific type of outdoor style: Classic, Rustic, Romantic, Modern, Whimsical, and In Town.  Six or seven different locations are featured in every chapter, each contributing a different idea or novel aspect of the same style.  A multipaged “Components” section appears at the end of each chapter focusing on important elements of outdoor decorating, such as paving and lighting, followed by a heavily illustrated “Ideas” spread with tips on achieving a particular look.  None of the magnificent spaces in this book has ever been published before; they range from a Southeast Asian-inspired tropical garden in Florida to a Japanese tea garden atop a New York City roof, from a grand wraparound porch on a classic home facing Lake Michigan to a thoroughly modern all-white patio near Miami.  The Outdoor Living Room also includes an extensive resource section, illustrating and describing garden furniture, architectural and landscape elements, and decorative items.  Packed with more than 350 full-color photographs, The Outdoor Living Room is at once a practical sourcebook and an inspirational delight. 

A SIMPLE BENCH or a charming birdbath, a graceful trellis or a weathered fountain- the right ornament in the right place can transform any garden into a lush, private Eden.  Whether you have a classic suburban backyard, a small country garden, or a high-rise terrace with a city view, Garden Ornaments shows you how to select and position the perfect furniture and ornaments for any garden. 

    Renowned gardener Martha Baker looks at a variety of beautiful gardens, accompanied by detail shots of furniture and ornaments, and supplies inventive but practical design tips and hot-to projects, such as building a trellis or antiquing an urn.  Each chapter focuses on a popular garden style- Classical, Waterside, Urban, Romantic, Rustic, Gallery, or Whimsical- and spotlights key pieces that help create these wonderful spaces.  Opening up a new world of design options, Martha Baker guides you in choosing the right furniture and ornaments for your own garden- from such simple objects as urns, folding bistro chairs, or candle lanterns to more exuberant gestures like a steel topiary, a wrought-iron chandelier, or a trellis strung with lights.  And to further aid you in selecting the perfect pieces, an extensive resource section not only lists garden centers, stores, and outlets, but also showcases the best garden ornaments available- bringing your own Eden closer to home.

    With hundreds of gorgeous photographs and a wealth of useful information and how-to advice, Garden Ornaments is a boundless source of inspiration, sure to delight and instruct any gardener.