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The luminous new bathroom repurposes the original medicine cabinet and light fixture, while statement cement floor tile from Original Mission Tile in Hex Bakery adds a graphic punch. The ceramic subway wall tile is Florida Tile ‘Arctic Matte’, and the wall-mounted faucet is a Tiburon Series Lavatory Faucet from California Faucets in matte black.

The spectacular kitchen renovation includes repurposed cabinets, almost entirely unrecognizable after their modern facelift. The original cabinets were painted (Benjamin Moore 'Onyx') and reinstalled in an updated configuration. Even the new kitchen peninsula was made from reused original cabinets.

Painting the wood paneling behind the fireplace (in Benjamin Moore ‘White Dove’), laying new sugar pine floors, and adding new windows and doors completely transformed the living room space. A deep clean of the knotty pine tongue and groove ceilings was enough to bring them back to life, while the trusses’ new black-brown paint brings sharp contrast.

The guest house kitchen faces a wall of windows.

An energy-efficient TPO membrane covers the living room’s zigzag roof.

The windows over the sink open right onto the screen porch. A wall of built-in shelving offers both storage and a clever way to separate the kitchen and living room.

“Someone snidely asked if we were building a rec center. I thought, This is what architecture should be about, asking, 'what is a home, what could it be?'”

Living, dining, and kitchen spaces flow into one another in the soaring great room. Here, the Sacramento firm placed new, polished concrete slabs over the original ones to alleviate unsightly cracks.

In one kitchen, the countertops are Corian, while in the other, you’ll find stainless steel. “We changed materials for each to give them a different identity,” says Elsley.

The experience of the farm includes to the permaculture vegetable garden, fresh farm eggs, interactions with the goats and horses, and hiking through a landscape populated by giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and warthogs.

An 11-foot-wide trifold glass door opens the art studio to the landscape, where rolling hills surround a large glassy pond.

Elina and Otto paired their Iniö model with a sauna from Pluspuu and an adjacent hot tub that sit just down a path beyond the home. In winter months, guests can skinny dip before warming up again.

DeNiord designed a simple concrete bench with a honed top to run parallel to the randomly sized concrete pads that lead to the covered entry. He planted blueberry bushes behind the bench and a river birch tree behind the boulder. To conjure a wabi-sabi feel outdoors, diNiord poured concrete around a boulder. “It represents the interruption of perfect geometry,” he says.

Architect Deam created the dining table from a fallen elm tree.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

The new great room opens up completely to the patio with multi-panel pocket sliding glass doors that measure seven feet tall and 22 feet long.