The original location of the front porch is now tucked into a cozy nook at the intersection of the house and the new garage.
In the kitchen, the showstopping ceiling’s herringbone pattern is echoed by the terra-cotta tiles on the floor. Architect Michael O’Sullivan, who designed the steel-and-glass kitchen cabinets, the table, and the pendant lights (made by Lava Glass), further amped up the richness of the room by specifying an onyx kitchen island. Interior designer Yvette Jay, a collaborator and classmate of O’Sullivan, kept her material palette “tight and limited. I had to restrict myself so that everything here ties in with the architecture.”
A pale polished floor helps to bounce around the light that floods in through the double-height wall of reclaimed windows. Accents of green and wooden pieces add to the nature-inspired feel.
In this Palm Springs duplex, for cabinet doors, the architect owner designed aqua blue plywood sliders that park at specific positions, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Contractor Franklin Pineda custom-built these cabinets using Baltic birch plywood from Anderson Plywood.
If you don't like handles sticking out from your cabinet doors, then one quirky and clever idea is to have a hole drilled near the top of the cabinet door, so you can stick you finger in it and pull the door open. These orange-painted MDF cabinets in a New Zealand beach house is an example of how this idea works brilliantly in cheery, low- kitchen.
A skylight spans across most of the primary bathroom. Baker used two different tile shapes in the same color for a custom pattern, and paired it with terrazzo on the floor.
A beautifully designed, mosaic-like tile shower.
Renovating the old mill was a family effort, and Blee called on his sister Kate, a textile designer based in London, to lend a helping hand with the tile work. Kate's repertoire also extends to building installations, including a ceramic wall in the City and Islington Center for Lifelong Learning in North London. "She had several boxes left over," Blee recalls, "which meant another opportunity to use something that was lying around." The tiles, with finishes ranging from heavy glazes to matte coats, offered textural variety, which brother and sister used to "play around with the idea of reflection from the roof light."
Los Angeles–based design firm ORA built this family home in the Mar Vista suburb with two separate buildings: a long, linear home “shaped like a boomerang,” and a bright-red accessory dwelling unit. In the main house, a soothing material palette composed of concrete floors, white walls, and wood is punctuated by spots of color, such as the teal tile backsplash and salmon-toned cabinet in the kitchen, or the sunshine-yellow vanity in one of the bathrooms.
Martin Architects designed a bed in white oak for the master bedroom. The neutral palette continues via a David Weeks One-Arm Wall Sconce from Ralph Pucci. Photo by Patrick Bernard.
One of the main goals of the renovation was to refurbish and preserve the home’s original 19th century characteristics. The new addition works to add a modern element that complements the past.
This midcentury gem lays in Crestwood Hills, in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, an endangered enclave of midcentury post-and-beam houses designed by A. Quincy Jones and Whitney R. Smith.
An antlers light fixture made in Bariloche, Argentina hangs above the dining table that was locally made from native coihue wood. The living room sofas were purchased at Forastero and are paired with a Muebleco table.
In the kitchen, Fougeron and her team designed a nook backed with sliding panels and lined in green felt from FilzFelt. Solo Wide Dining Chairs by Neri & Hu for De la Espada surround a Dizzie table by Lievore Altherr Molina from Arper.
The master bedroom features a closet in the corridor to use less space. Sight lines lead to the forest from nearly every space.
Concrete from the exterior continues indoors as a fireplace surround. For the couch, Annemie found the wooden base and cushion covers in a secondhand store and used baby mattresses as inserts. David made the oak back.
“I love using board and batten, because it gives you a way of making hidden doors,” Davis says. In the living room, there’s a hidden closet under the stairs. In the kitchen, near the stove, there’s a hidden spice rack.
Fir-framed sliding glass doors match floating shelves made from the same wood. To create the open corner, Davis’s team buried a steel beam in the ceiling.
Board and batten paneling, painted in Benjamin Moore’s Nimbus, nods to the home’s history.
The kitchen countertops are made of oiled soapstone, and the backsplash features Heath Ceramics tiles. The island is a Carrara marble slab fitted onto an industrial base from Big Daddy's Antiques.
The interior is wrapped with floor-to-ceiling Plytech Birch Elite finished in solvent-free Woca oil, and cross-laminated timber flooring, for a warm, quiet, and cozy feel.
Boat design inspired the concept for the bedroom and bathroom. “Boats are where great design meets small spaces,” explains de la Vega.
Located in historic Casa Blanca, Arizona, the Kempe Residence is focused on entertaining children, adults and pets alike. Salvaged olive trees were chosen to create a continuous arch of shade around the entire outdoor patio space, while smaller fruit bearing trees were used in pots and in locations where space was tight.
Taking cues from this home's Japanese-influenced slatted screen, Hufft Projects applied a ring of ipe wood around the perimeter of this outdoor fire pit.
Cool air from the gardens flows into the rooms through sliding doors and windows.
Garden terrace
A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.
Large aggregate concrete pavers lead to the new fire pit. A concrete wall provides privacy and a sense of enclosure.