NC Designs - Los Osos, California

Holly Maulhardt

Nicole designed an absolutely beautiful space that we immediately loved and has continued to grow with our family. Her attention to detail, responsiveness, and ability to help us meet timelines and budgets was excellent. We've since recommended her to multiple friends who are all just as pleased with their projects as we are.

Orlando Viera

Nicole was wonderful to work with. She was proactive, educational, personable, and warm. She listened attentively and patiently to our messy list of wishes and desires, took the time to analyze and document our property, and produced a perfect design that my wife and I instantly loved. The several landscape contractors that we have approached to build Nicole’s design have all commented on how awesome and thoughtful the design is. We will recommend Nicole to anyone looking for a professional and thorough landscape designer, and would work with her again in a heartbeat!

Hilary Norcross

I highly recommend Nicole and NC Designs as a landscape architect. From the instant we met I felt good about her intentions and interest in our project. Her aesthetic and color palette was appealing and her style was fresh and contemporary yet classic at the same time. We really liked the design plan but being new to landscape design had some trepidation about scale and needed to process. She listened, asked questions, was open to adjustments, and above all was patient with us which we appreciated. Nicole took the time to talk us through all the plans, made adjustments that helped us feel comfortable with the scope, and made suggestions on options. She made the extra effort to give us recommendations for contractors and has continued to follow up and offer help. I can’t say enough good things and would recommend Nicole and her design firm without hesitation.

Elisa Schreiber

If you are looking for clean and timeless, modern but warm, and unique but highly functional design for your outdoor living space, you should definitely work with NC Designs. Working with Nicole was a dream. The process was remarkably simple: Nicole came to our house and we chatted about how we want to use our outdoor space. We shared what was working for us and what wasn’t. She asked smart and thoughtful questions and then got to work. When she presented our first design plan, we were shocked! She had so many ideas for space design and placement of various elements that we never could have imagined ourselves. Best of all: these clever and creative ideas ALL WORKED PERFECTLY. Beyond the gorgeous hardscape she helped design and select, she carefully chose plants that would grow in to soften and bring the garden to life, keeping our California drought-tolerant needs top of mind. Now that the work has been completed, we feel like the front and back yards were always supposed to be this way. Nicole has made it so our outdoor “rooms” are the best rooms in the house.

Xavier Moreau

Fantastic!
Nicole was able to capture our vision thanks to her excellent knowledge and taste.
A pleasure to work with and great process.
Couldn't be happier with the result.

mason schroder

We can't recommend Nicole highly enough, (and in fact we do recommend her any chance we get!). From our first meeting to look at our existing yard to having every plant in the ground, Nicole demonstrated the perfect blend of collaboration and expertise. We knew what general elements we wanted to include in our yard, but were looking for a landscape architect to really take our ideas and completely transform our yard.

When we bought our house the entire yard mostly weeds. It took a few years of saving up and dreaming about what we wanted the experience of our yard to provide for us as a family. We knew we wanted a big space for kids to play, careful plants selection, modern concrete elements, and a fire-pit for hosting friends. Nicole provided us with a detailed site plan that served as the authority for the project from start to finish. Her experienced insight and detailed vision for what our yard could become was seriously inspiring. She introduced us to awesome plants we'd never heard of before, brought her own ideas to the table (look at those stairs!), and served as an adviser for so many decisions we made along the way with our contractors.

We love the ability to have friends over for drinks by the fire, play dates in the backyard with our kids, and it honestly feels like our house got bigger because the space is so much more utilized. Thanks Nicole, you totally transformed the experience of our home!