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Rear garden

On the home's east side, the overhang created by the second story volume shades the front door while still allowing morning light into the bedrooms.

Filled with predominately Australian plants, the garden is easy to look after.

“When you work with a remodel, depending on how far you want to take the work, you are either careful and consider the existing structure or you treat it as a blank canvas,” he says. They worked with the shape of the building to make it “appear less imposing from the street” as well as clean up the elevations to make them more pedestrian in scale by rebuilding the front porch and carport. The exterior, a blackened sugi ban-esque wood, brings warmth and resiliency, and has an “alligator-like texture to it,” says the architect.

Once the sun sets, the private side deck with soaking tub offers an idyllic setting for stargazing.

White Oak Kitchen at The Wilde Retreat

The couple used pre-cast concrete pavers for the hardscaping, as they were "more economical than cast-in-place concrete,

Rebuilding the rear addition gave Aleksandra a chance to play with its form, and make it contrast with the historic body of the Edwardian. Large glass doors lighten up the kitchen and connect it to the deck and backyard.

New triple-glazed window units in the bay window conform with energy-efficiency requirements in Vancouver, "which is the most stringent in all of Canada,

The staircase needed to be rebuilt to meet current building code, but being in basically its original location, is an anchor in the redesign. The wall color is "Hamilton Blue

Design, Bitches turns a typical Atwater Village home into a lush hideaway with a new, cedar-clad guesthouse.

California pepper trees, grasses, and sage are low-maintenance, low-water plants that also are low-allergen.

A couple transform their backyard into a botanical children’s playland and an ideal entertaining spot.

great room

The original layout was very much of the time: a perfect midcentury modern flow, with a closed-off kitchen and a fire put in the floor. “They were cool but impractical spaces,” says Schaer.

“I walked in and thought, this room wants to be low,” says Kirsten. Friends in Amsterdam had the same sofa. “The kids would jump all over it, and I love that kind of feeling. I wanted to bring that to our house.”

Cooke John's focus on residential design allows her to consider design at a range of scales, from the individual home to the broader context. This kitchen renovation in Chelsea was completed with Anne-Marie Singer.