Family Room

Two iron lamps on chunky fieldstone posts straddle the entrance to a driveway that ambles past a sprawling front lawn and ends at the side garages attached to the equally sprawling, two-story Provencal-style home of the Twigg family. The gray stucco of the exterior, with gables, second-floor dormers and four white columns supporting a large roof over the front porch, would suggest an established estate were it not for new saplings planted along the ends of the property and the construction of houses rising nearby.

When I experience a minor setback in food preparation, I just reflect on the wise words of that culinary mentor, my mother, who — in spite of many kitchen calamities — managed to feed five children on a tight budget for more than two decades. “Darn it all!” she’d say. And then she’d clean everything up and start all over. Eus Ekcirf, whose name has been privacy- protected by backward spelling, endured many a frustrating moment in the kitchen, such as when we kids would slice into the freshly frosted cake meant for her PTA coffee, or when we would hook a saucepan off the burner with the extra-long cord while talking on the “harvest gold” wallmount kitchen telephone.

The Ruzickas' two-story traditional home in the Perry Hall development of Bentley's Ridge bears a striking resemblance to several others on the block. The couple couldn't care less. "It's a cookie cutter on the outside," Janet Ruzicka said. "But it has everything we ever wanted on the inside." The two looked for more than two years for the right home, checking out much larger houses. Many, they said, were "a waste of space for just two people." Then they found Bentley's Ridge, and immediately knew it was the right place for them just from the model home.

T he Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin on the 25th of December and end Jan. 6 with the Feast of the Epiphany, hold special meaning for Willa Boze and her daughter, Sharon Williams. In addition to an entire tree decorated with Wedgewood ornaments depicting a partridge in a pear tree, three French hens, two turtle doves and so forth, the home is a showplace of decorative art collections celebrating the season of peace and goodwill. Just as the task of trimming the home began months before Christmas Day, the festive atmosphere the women have created is enjoyed long after presents are opened and carols are sung.

T wo years ago last August, Melissa and Rick Henry decided to sell their Baltimore County townhouse and move to a single-family home. "We were looking for an open floor plan," said Melissa Henry, a stay-at-home mother of two. "[We] wanted to see our kids from any room on the [first] floor." Rick Henry, a 35-year-old liquor salesman, on a different wave of thought, added that the couple likes to welcome guests. "We entertain a lot," he said. "This house is great for entertaining."

These are big houses on tiny lots," Eileen Jacobs says of her two-story, all-brick traditional home in Owings Mills. Her decorating challenge, therefore, was not the exterior but rather the interior space of 3,400 square feet, not counting the basement. She was more than up to the task, and while the house was being constructed, she designed rooms and bought furnishings working only from floor plans. "The [design] was all in my mind's eye before we moved," she said. "One to two months afterward, I had everything in place.

When they became engaged last year, Ed Stone, a Perry Hall native and Kathy Merz, who lived downtown in Federal Hill, began to look for a home. They wanted a new place where they could start their life together. "[Ed] didn't want the city," Kathy Stone remembered. "And I didn't think I could leave it." Then the couple found the new community of Quarry Lake, northwest of the city off Greenspring Avenue. "It was a great compromise," Kathy Stone remembered. "[Quarry Lake] has shops, restaurants and a drugstore for me and greenery and open spaces for Ed."

When Todd Taylor suggested to his wife of three decades that they become the fourth generation to live in his family's Sears Roebuck kit house in Ellicott City, she thought he was kidding. They couple had finally gotten their place the way they liked it, and the old homestead needed more than substantial work. "He said, 'You could have a dog,' and I said, 'I want carte blanche and two dogs,' " Candace Taylor recounted. Deal. The couple wanted the home to reflect its history. But they wanted it to suit their family's lifestyle, exude a welcome to friends and be thought of by Todd's sister and brother as the family home.