If you are looking for that holiday gift for someone who has everything, you might think about picking up a pond. Whether it’s hardly bigger than a puddle or large enough to swim in, people who have added ponds or waterfalls to their landscapes are passionate about the way a simple little (or big) water feature has changed their lives. They use words like “tranquility” and “peace” and “world away” to describe coming home and simply sitting beside some bubbling water.

In her 30-year career Diane Breckenridge-Barrett has created beautiful living rooms, grand hotel lobbies and handsome offices. Her interior design talents have transformed sleek downtown condos and rustic country getaways.

But no matter what the project, somewhere in that design you would be hard pressed not to find a bouquet of flowers. The arrangements might show up as part of a painting or a fabric detail or displayed in a fine container, but flowers there would be.

Downsizing certainly doesn’t have to mean downgrading. When two empty nesters traded their roomy Frontenac home for a smaller place with high walk-ability scores, they retained the grandiose open-air amenities they’d previously enjoyed by cleverly facilitating a collision of functionality, comfort and class.

 In the 18th century, British statesman Edmund Burke theorized that for men to love their country, their country should be lovely. Burke’s constituents in the British Isles took him at his word.

The small sign is tucked into a planter in the beautifully compact garden of Janice Hobson’s University City condominium. Other than the gender of the pronoun, the sentiment could not be more perfect. 

Twelve months a year, bubbling fountains and numerous feeders welcome flocks of joyous, chirping birds to the small space.  If human beings could tweet as happily as birds, the people that are drawn to the spot would be singing an equally merry song.