Jun 28, 2022
When Susan and John Skinner purchased their 3,200-square-foot Carmichael ranch home in 1990, they knew they had a house with good bones.
“It had been built in the 80s by a builder for his own father,” Susan says. “It was solid. There were no cut corners.” The house also had deep political roots: The owner was a Capitol lobbyist who loved to entertain. The newly married couple saw the immediate potential.
“But the home was very dated inside with multitudes of conflicting patterned wallpapers and carpets. That was the first thing we changed,” Susan says. The Skinners installed oak hardwood floors, updated to a neutral carpet and added new neutral paint.
May 28, 2022
Psst. Want to know a secret? Snuggled between J Street and a parking garage is the University Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Yup, a petite parcel of trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials on the Sacramento State campus.
Easy to miss, the arboretum is a surprisingly tranquil retreat from modern mayhem. The Sacramento Tree Foundation, which awarded the arboretum its “Legacy Award,” says schoolchildren call it the “Forest in the City.”
Apr 28, 2022
Gardening is fertilizer for the soul. Admire a flower. Inhale a patch of lavender. A few minutes with nature bring obvious benefits. Less obvious and underappreciated are creatures that live in our soil, on our plants or drop by Sacramento gardens for a visit.
Gardens teem with both pests and, hopefully, beneficial creatures. Beneficial, in a gardening sense, means critters that help in pollination and control pests. They also can improve soil.
As a lad, I learned to appreciate honeybees. Dad was a honeybee hobbyist who tended hives and extracted honey. Guess who was conscripted to help.
Apr 28, 2022
Ann Huntsman made a bold, life-changing decision in 2017. Turning 80, she decided to uproot from Cupertino and move to Sacramento to be near her only grandchild.
“I had lived for decades in a two-story, six-bedroom Spanish-style home where we raised our family,” Huntsman says. “It was very traditional, a job to maintain, and I had accumulated years of possessions. But it was time for me to start again in a whole new style of living.”
Huntsman is a retired nurse and investor in health care technology. Her daughter and family live a mile away. She could not be happier.
