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From lighting to plumbing, here’s what you should know before you start your next update.

Melanie and David spend a lot of time outside, so indoor/outdoor accessibility was key.

Island Life The appealing, handcrafted appearance of the concrete kitchen island is a happy accident, the result of the concrete not settling fully in its timber framing. When the framing was removed, the builder, Peter Davidson, was worried that Davor and Abbe would be disappointed with the bubbled result and offered to start the process again, but they loved its one-off feeling and persuaded him to keep it that way.

The ground floor’s adjoining staircase, as well as the kitchen cabinets and tables, can be adjusted depending the homeowner's preferences. “The design of the house is an attempt to respond to [French novelist] Georges Perec’s question, ‘We should learn to live more on staircases. But how?’” Simpson says.

In the kitchen, the couple found barely used appliances instead of new ones to save money. The cabinetry and butcher block counters are from Ikea.

Brick House transformed

Architect Robert Swinburne deploys a collaborative building approach and hyperlocal materials to craft a Passive House–certified home that celebrates the land it’s built on.