Bench Seating

Designed to cope with cold weather, the home comes installed with a fireplace and underfloor heating.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”

Seattle firm Wittman Estes designed this compact cabin floating above a meadow on Whidbey Island.

The white oak bench seating wraps a vintage wood table found on Offer Up. The custom cushions are by Legacy Custom Upholstery in Perennials 'Raffia' fabric in Geranium Red. The wall light is the Schoolhouse 'Gantry Pivot Sconce.'

Mudroom cabinetry creates consistency with the rest of the house.

The cabinetry is painted Asian Paints Dense Woods and the overhead light is Kumar. A thick piece of Panda Marble was chosen for the custom table. “The beauty of this marble was that it was a beautiful piece that had a few streaks of green apart from the black and white streaks, which went well with our design and color scheme,” says Wagh.

In the dining room, a built-in banquette is surrounded by multi-functional cabinetry. The seat bench stores special occasion or serving dishes, while the tall cabinet against the wall is for everyday plates and glassware. An upper cabinet fronted with white mesh even conceals the air conditioner.

After: The soaring new living and dining space benefits from an abundance of natural light from every side, and they spent a lot of time trying to find the best lighting for the kitchen. The final choice: long, narrow copper pendants from Denmark suspended by ultra thin wires to not disrupt the visual flow of the room.

Listed for the first time since it was built in 1979, the cliffside home of architect Barry Downs is located in a waterfront area that is at risk of redevelopment.

The home’s modest size meant Caleb did not have to worry too much about material and labor costs. For example, all the interior walls are done in plaster, which is three-to-four times more expensive than drywall in Maine.

Stuart crafted the banquette base using ambrosia maple that he had been saving for a worthy project.

Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP used 87 translucent bricks to reframe a family’s connection to nature and the city.

A cozy study with custom banquette and Japanese elm table is located on the north side of the living room.