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Open and light filled, this teal and grey kitchen is the perfect family gathering place featuring a big functional island to allow for many cooks in the kitchen.

Kitchen: Open and light filled, this teal and grey kitchen is the perfect family gathering place featuring a big functional island to allow for many cooks in the kitchen.

Exterior view

After renting in San Francisco for a decade, DIY couple Molly Fiffer and Jeff Waldman bought 10 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the pair and their friends built a cabin compound complete with sheds, tree decks, a pavilion, a wood-fired hot tub, an outhouse, and an outdoor shower. The cabin is made from locally sourced, rough-sawn redwood, which the couple stained with nontoxic Eco Wood Treatment to give the panels an aged appearance and a dark patina.

The Linns’ home, which Andrew Linn and Jack Becker completed for Andrew and his wife last year, declares its commitment to natural materials with a patchwork of wood products on its exterior. The sassafras cladding the lower portion of the house’s east face peels away from the building to become a freestanding fence enclosing a small, private outdoor space in the middle of the alley.

Reclaimed wood covers the ceiling in the main room and bedroom. The large white light fixture was reused from the barn’s previous incarnation, and the sectional is from Interior Define.

Perched quietly on the dunes of New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, Hut on Sleds serves as a small, sustainable beach retreat for a family of five.

Madison points out that the pod concept would make it easy to add an extension if necessary. “We see it as a house that can grow with us—and that we can pay for as we go along.”

Consider realistic DIY limitations. If you’ve never delved into plumbing or electrical work before, a major renovation is usually not the right time to get started, as this type of work is best left to professionals. Even something as seemingly simple as demolition work can quickly become more complex if you are replacing plumbing or electrical fixtures.

Out of The Valley just completed their latest project, the Holly Water Cabin—and it’s available for rent.

Avid cooks, Jinhee and John spend part of every day around their custom-built kitchen island, surrounded by Compasso d’Oro barstools. The island is on castors, so it easily moves around the kitchen as needed. An edamame plant on their patio occasionally provides leaves for Korean dishes.

The kitchen of this Brooklyn brownstone features a brick backsplash with a metal panel connecting the Bluestar range to the Viking chimney wall hood. The mashup of materials preserves the personality of brick with the ease of cleaning stainless steel. The island and cabinets are fashioned from remilled Douglas fir beams salvaged from Upstate New York.