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The house, painted in "Poppyseed

A guest bedroom, with furniture from Room & Board, overlooks the bridge above the dining courtyard. The home’s landscape architecture is by Ventura, California–based Jack Kiesel. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The creative dining room table is not just a clever solve for a small space, it's a beautiful bespoke piece. Form and function each gets its spotlight.

The table folds out to seat four people, or become a bigger workspace to spread out.

The table’s base, which itself is an additional storage container, rolls easily into place to support the surface.

Soaring ceiling heights and dramatic glass walls bring the outdoors in.

A mezzanine loft level provides extra floor space without increasing the home's footprint. Built-in bookshelves double as a guardrail for the lofted work space, accessed by a built-in ladder.

The Nook exterior features shiplap cypress siding, a reclaimed oak deck, and an entranceway of oak blackened in the traditional Japanese method.

The bedroom opens out onto a small rear deck with potted plants and an outdoor shower.

The front door opens to a courtyard. A sliding glass door leads to an open-plan kitchen/dining area.

Built-in shelves run along the entire length of the wall of the mezzanine study loft.

A gray table, mint-green pendant lamp, and blue dining chairs are located in the dining area.

“The pitched ceilings and ribbon of clerestory windows make the interior feel more spacious than it is,” notes Gooden.

St Kilda by Modscape

Using natural materials is one way of bringing nature indoors. Oiled white ash floors and ceilings, along with Italian poplar and Lawson cypress joinery, are found throughout architect Andrew Simpson’s 538-square-foot home outside Wellington, New Zealand.

Now, large doors connect inside and out, as does the double-sided fireplace. Instead of installing a flat fascia board at the roof, Marlatt “went to a metal shop and had a stainless-steel V-shape fabricated. It gives us that sharp metal edge, almost like a wing of a plane.” The new deck is made of Pakari, a thermally modified pine that is chemical free, insect and rot resistant, renewable, and California fire-rated.