ANR Landscape Design, LLC

In 2010, we bought a recently completed single-story home on a 1/4 acre lot in Edmonds.  The house was attractive and built well but we thought that it lacked personality.  And although the builder did a great job on the house and the "outside room" style patio, he did the bare minimum for landscaping in the front and pretty much nothing in the back yard.  We've had really good luck in the past doing our own landscape design but the yard of our new house was so generic that we were having a hard time coming up with anything reasonably affordable to give it some contour, texture and charm.  So we decided to get help with the design and also to hire someone to handle the implementation. 
We came up with what we thought was a reasonable budget for the project and interviewed several landscape designers.  We considered designers who did only design, and we also talked with designers who had or were part of landscape construction firms.  We decided to go with Anri Rapelje because we thought it would be a better idea to work with an independent designer who could develop a set of plans that we could then bid out to multiple firms for implementation.  Anri's design approach seemed fresh, creative and very personalized to our project.  So even though she didn't have a lot of references at the time (having gone out on her own not long before), we decided to go with her.  It helped that her pricing structure was very fair. 
Anri quickly developed a comprehensive plan for the front, side and back yards.  We had given her a LOT of input on what we liked/didn't like, including very detailed plant and planter info, plus we had already arranged to have a custom garden shed (adorable, looks like a little cottage) built in the back so she had to incorporate all of that stuff in her design.  She came up with an approach for the back yard that we NEVER would have come up with, and it was very cool.   Her design beautifully accommodates the significant differences in sunlight in back, plus gives us the textured, interesting result we had hoped for. 
If there was a downside to Anri's plan, it was that there was no way it could be implemented within our budget.  We would have had to either significantly cut back on plantings and the fairly minimal hardscape elements, or do all of the work ourselves.  So after getting multiple landscape contractors' bids, we decided to suck it up and spend more than twice what we originally budgeted.  To be fair, our initial budget was probably quite unrealistic.  It wouldn't have been fun to hear at the time, but we would rather have known that at the get-go.
Two years after Anri's plan was implemented, our yard looks great.  We get lots of compliments on it and love to look at it ourselves :)   We have continued to add lots of plants ourselves (we love Swanson's Nursery and they love us!) and will probably never be done, but thanks to Anri's excellent design we could actually just stop and enjoy our yard as it is.

Anri designed my front and back yard. In the process of designing she really listened to what I wanted to get done and what kind of yard I am trying to create. Before I hired her, I did check her work on her company's web site. After I saw her work, I was confident that she would provide the good quality design/ service that I am looking for. I had two other estimates from other companies, but those were much higher than her price was. Since some of the work we were planning to do by ourselves, I just wanted to get some landscape designing (drawing with scale). She was very knowledgeable about all trees and plants. She gave me a lot of good ideas and guided me as to what kind of design would suit my house's appearance and also fit my budget. If anybody is thinking or looking to do or redo landscaping, I would highly recommend her service.