A Stunning Garden & Outdoor Living Space in Kenwood, California | Garden Tour & Inspiration

So the backyard is where we spend most of our time. And it looks very different than it does today. Although there are some original features out here. The tank house is one of them. And in Sonoma County you'll find lots of these tank houses. If you pay attention they are like relics in Sonoma. And we have the original well here. The tank houses before modern plumbing and electricity they would use windmills to pump the water from the well up to a tank and use gravity to push it down to the pipes. One of the main draws of this piece of property was the large expansive lawn. But we knew with the warmth in Sonoma that we eventually wanted to put in a pool. We were a little concerned that we were going to eat up the space of the lawn. But as you can see we still have a ton of lawn space. And the kids are out here all the time playing wiffle ball and throwing a football around. And we put an in-ground trampoline at the far side of the lawn which was a bit of a negotiation with my husband because he's a little freaked out about trampolines. But this is more for me than anyone else. But we positioned the pool on this side of the property for a couple reasons. Had to have a step back from the well and the septic. So we positioned it on this side but I always envisioned the kids jumping on the trampoline and running and jumping into the pool. We also built this arbor above the fence and I had another vision of this arbor full of pink roses that would frame the pool. And in the spring it's done just that. It's so beautiful to see those roses pop and just create this frame on the pool. They only last three or four weeks but those few weeks are glorious. This is a place that we entertain a ton and when we design the space we had that in mind. So we sort of have these zones on the property. One of them being the pool space and the sectional over in the corner. The seating by the pool. We have the table and umbrella here. The fire pit with the chairs surrounding it. We have a dining table there. The long antique dining table with the hanging pendants above the tree. And we also have cornhole and ping pong over on this side of the house. And the carriage house which I'll show you next. The outdoor kitchen is one of my favorite spaces and it probably took the longest to design. My husband really wanted a all-encompassing kitchen where he could do all the cooking and not have to go inside to the kitchen. And there's quite a bit of distance between the outdoor kitchen and the indoor kitchen. So we really did maximize the outdoor space with all the appliances that you would need to cook a full meal. We have starting in this corner a beer tap. We have refrigeration here. A freezer. Storage. Spices. Of course barbecue. We have a side burner here. Beverage center. Ice maker. Trash. Sink. Dishwasher. A lot of people asked us why we would put wood cabinetry in this kitchen but it's actually stainless steel. So it's super durable. The cabinets are by Brown Jordan in partnership with Danvers. And I wanted to create this sense of connection with the house and sort of this cottage style of cabinetry which you don't typically see in an outdoor kitchen. One of my favorite features is the tile backsplash and it really does connect the color with the color of the house. The countertops are porcelain made to look like poured concrete. And poured concrete I love the look of it but it's very porous and even if you seal it you're still going to get the water marks eventually. And the porcelain once it's installed is very durable. It's a little tricky. You'll have to find a knowledgeable fabricator to do the install but once it's here it's pretty much bulletproof. We installed the television in the direction of the pool because I had envisioned the kids and adults watching TV and games from the hot tub and from the bar stools and from the lounge chairs. So we really do utilize the television out here mainly for football and baseball games but occasionally we'll do an outdoor movie out here so it's really fun. The fire pit is a space that we spend a lot of time into the night and we'll sit around here have great conversation. The kids will often play guitar and even if there's no one sitting around the fire pit we'll turn it on because it really is a nice ambiance to be able to sit in the hot tub and see that glow of a fire. Let me take you now to the pool house. So when we built this space in 2020 as you can remember doors and windows were really hard to source at that time. There was a lead time of like 18 to 24 months so we had to get a little bit creative and I found these antique bi-folding doors that I feel like fit perfectly and really did the job of connecting the new space with the old space. Let me show you one more thing out here it's the outdoor shower. In the summertime people will come out here and actually prefer the outdoor shower to the indoor shower. This outdoor faucet is one that I actually found on Amazon. It was the end of the project ran out of money and I thought I'd just get this as a temporary fixture and it has turned out to be one of the best plumbing fixtures in the house. It has a few different settings the shower the handheld you can wash your feet and there's also a light here so people can come around the back switch the light on and take an outdoor shower under the stars. Hugo I want to tell you about the porch. Typical to craftsman homes this house has a very large deep porch. I always wanted a porch swing as a kid and I knew from the moment that we bought this house that I was going to put a porch swing in. I love this particular one it's by Charleston Bedswing and it really just does give that southern vibe along with the rocking chairs and I love potting plants here in the spring and the summer so this is my happy place. First places that I come with a cup of coffee before I make my way to the workspace in the banquette if I'm working from home. The house is sort of this periwinkle blue color and the house was painted blue by the Cundy family when they lived here and it was painted sometime in the 40s or 50s and when we moved here people would ask are you going to change the color of the home and I said oh gosh no I wouldn't dare the house has been the same color for the last 70 or 80 years so we decided to just really lean into the blue and that's what we've done on the exterior so we're making periwinkle cool again in the most classic and timeless way of course. This house really feels like home to us because we have honored the history of the house and kept a lot of the original features but brought in our own sense of style so it really does feel like ours. Thanks for watching be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content shopping guides and so much more.