livingroom

A sliding glass Western Window Systems door dissolves the boundary between indoor and outdoor.

Living, dining, and kitchen spaces flow into one another in the soaring great room. Here, the Sacramento firm placed new, polished concrete slabs over the original ones to alleviate unsightly cracks.

The clients enjoy boating and kayaking and often utilize the site’s direct water access. “There’s a boathouse at the bottom of the site, so we’ve tried to clean the view up,” says architect Fraser Mudge of the framing. “We also controlled the height of it a little bit to frame the beauty of the water and the National Park, rather than the sky.”

The architect dressed the living room with a soft palette of cream and blush tones. The parquet flooring offers subtle pattern and more texture for the space.

That’s how Milla Novo and her husband, Nigel Nowotarski, came to live in the top of what was once a chapel. As you step into their apartment, large arched windows hint at its ecclesiastical past, but the couple’s eye-catching textiles and artworks—set against pristine white walls—make the biggest impression.

A built-in bench was added to one side.

"A lot of people thought we were crazy to put in a fireplace in a Florida home, but the biggest surprise for my wife and me has been how much we use it,