Charlie D’Amato is our Senior Manager of Product Development  and Design. He spends his days in the office analyzing sales, market, and trend data in Classic’s product categories to propose new product development projects. Charlie also oversees our Product Development Team with defining project scope, product line planning, and development project management.  He also oversees Product Design team in sourcing and development of raw materials, color palette development, and product design and development from concept to production. You can imagine the amount of creative work that ebbs and flows from our departments here at Classic Accessories. Charlie gets to be the guy in charge of making sure all of us creatives stay within our coloring lines and in a very timely manner. He does so effortlessly. He calls Vashon Island home here in the great Northwest and gets on a ferry every day to come into work.

We get to live “life on the island” through his stories of Vashon and his many adventures working in the yard which is what he shared with us below:

This weekend was so amazing!  I got lots of time out in the garden.

For the past two weekends I have been clearing blackberry vines from this area of my property (These are close-up views) you can just see the fabulous redwood on the left of the first picture – this tree marks an entrance to an old growth wooded trail:

Charlie_Yard_2

This is a picture from the early spring before the leaves came out – it’s easier to see the position of the hardscaping here:

These are old pictures, so don’t get too excited!  

However I am not finished with the physical work yet.  When I clear away the brush piles I’ll take another “After” picture to use for my next post.

So this is an area that we named “Devil’s Hole” on our property!  It was overgrown with noxious weeds, and completely inaccessible!  It actually blocked off a beautiful wooded corner of our lot which is multi-layered and could be groomed into a beautiful park-like garden.

So, the way I see this outdoor space is like a strolling garden, full of pathways and steps to other levels which will provide “moments” in our garden landscape – views of the house, fenced gardens, and terraces.  For example, here are some pictures of the possible views – you can see the unfinished garden beds in the foreground and our lawn and home in the distance: