House Inspiration

The bedroom on the first floor gets natural light from a floor-to-ceiling window.

A picture window with a deep seat provides a place to take in the sun.

Folding glass doors on the north and south elevations create cross ventilation and open the cabin, clad in Western red cedar, to its forested setting and views of the ocean.

The floors are Doug fir, and the framing and rest of the wood inside is redwood. The french doors and lower window were made by Mike York at Ocean Sash & Door Company, while the upper windows were made by Jeff and Molly.

Matching windows in the living space creates a sight line through the home.

The white cedar exterior is rot- and insect-resistant, and has a beautiful silvery finish that will continue to patina over time.

Our Studio, space for design, art , and creative projects

Most of the artwork that adorns the walls is also by Mike and Jewlsy. The framed palm fronds above the credenza, for example, are inscribed with the original deeds to Jewlsy's family home in Kerala, India, and are approximately 300 years old.

At Sea Ranch, a half-century-old enclave of rugged modernist houses on the Northern California coast, a new home captures the spirit of its surroundings. The client, a couple, were guided by the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. Lovers of Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, the architects made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house "was very crisp and clean," he says. "This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi." Together, the Cor-Ten steel and board-form concrete give the exterior a weathered look.

At this summer house in a Danish forest, the cabin's T-shaped plan branches between existing trees.

Oza Sabbeth Architects and the Brooklyn Home Company teamed up to create this 2,800-square-foot home in the Ditch Plains hamlet of Montauk, in Long Island, New York.

Neal and Inga Barber built a new home atop the existing foundation of their previous house in Kenmore, a suburb of Seattle, Washington.

Given the Northwest's damp climate, moss thrives, and Daniel and Sandy are embracing the natural touch.

Warm wood detailing is a hallmark of these homes, inside and out. The Saturna 7 features a large deck.

After the Concrete, Washington, house where he grew up burned down, New York architect Jes Paone rebuilt it as a vacation home for himself and his family. With no original plans to work with, Jes relied on a few site cues but mostly his memory.

Though the original home didn’t have a foundation, Jes added one and raised the house about six feet to safeguard against potential flooding from a nearby river. The new house also includes a much larger second-level primary bedroom and en suite bathroom, plus a small balcony.

Jes began by sketching out the general layout and elevation based on what he could remember. There were three gable roofs, which he exaggerated and then mixed with an archway motif that echoes the area’s silos and other structures.