• Bear Cieri | John James

It's time to seize the summer, when the living spaces of Vermonters briefly expand to the great outdoors. No one blurs those lines more artfully than stonemason Thea Alvin, whose Morrisville property is a manifestation of her creative mind. Although her rows are straighter, garden guru Ellen Ecker Ogden of Manchester brings the best of both worlds to her kitchen gardens, which she recommends should be close enough to the house, as Nest's Jordan Barry writes, so "that you can start sautéeing onions on the stove, run out to harvest a handful of herbs and be back before anything burns." Thinking about installing a swimming pool? You're not alone. There's a long waiting list of Vermonters who want a bit of blue in the backyard. Charlotte-based contractor Damien Helem is fully booked this summer, too, but made time to talk to Nest about his journey from a fundamentalist Christian family in Australia to the Vermont rehab business. Find all of that — and a Vermont mastermind of mattress recycling — in this issue.