Medina

For the master bedroom floor, Regan bought plywood panels from Home Depot and turned the wood distressing process into a family affair. "Libby and I were in there with protective headphones just banging away," he says. "We distressed it, stained it, and sanded it down." The bed is made out of a piece of wood Regan salvaged from an abandoned bridge.

One of Catherine Williamson's favorite Semihandmade cabinets includes this appliance cabinet, which keeps things out of sight. The piece of art to the right is a vintage portrait from her grandparents.

An open shelf displays the couple’s glassware collection.

"The client had sourced some period-appropriate inspirational images and asked us to run with it,

The floor and the wall merge into one as concrete, wood, and subtle, warm tones create an integrated look. Customized furniture and built-in pieces throughout add to the minimalist vibe.

The rear of the home had been complicated by many additions. Davis streamlined the space as one adjoining kitchen, living room, dining room, and lower sunroom.

The brass backsplash was a risky experiment carried off by Natalie, who started with unlacquered 4x8 foot sheets, then gave them patina by covering them in vinegar, ketchup, and salt, and leaving them out in the sun. The resulting pattern was aligned as carefully as possible, and the surface sealed. “We just had to essentially cut the topography into a way that felt really great,” says Natalie.

Custom kitchen cabinetry with a stone countertop is made of the same ash wood sustainably harvested in Canada.

In the kitchen, an island countertop serves as a mixed-use area for cooking, storage, and seating for up to five people. The room opens up to an outdoor dining area.

In this sleek kitchen renovation in San Francisco, the kitchen backsplash is an easy-to-clean glass backsplash that mimics the glossy finish of the surrounding white cabinets. Painters accomplished the high-gloss finish on the cabinets of a kitchen in San Francisco by applying a coat of paint, polishing it with very high-grit sandpaper, repeating the process for each layer, then topping it with three coats of clear varnish. "It’s like an auto body," says builder Jeff King. "It’s incredibly beautiful." The island provides shelving space and storage as well as a second sink, an is topped with pietra grigio marble.

In Roanoke Park, a neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, architect Matthew Hufft designed a home for his family that drew on the surrounding traditional homes. In the kitchen, Bertoia barstools are tucked under a custom honed-granite two-level kitchen island by a local company, Carthage Stoneworks. Hufft’s team designed and built the larch cabinets. The appliances are by Thermador.

“The walnut unit between the kitchen and dining room ties into the fumed oak floor,” Dubbeldam says. “The rest of the materials in the house—glass, marble, stone—were selected to offset the wood.”

Blending in with the fiberboard walls, the medium density fiberboard doors in this kitchen hide a pull-out storage system that serves are a kitchen pantry.

The dining room is delineated from the kitchen by a long kitchen island with a higher partition between the two spaces. The island provides storage along its length, with exposed shelving at the ends. The drum lighting pendants by Axiom were also made using local timber.

Wood meets white marble in this well-lit bathroom by architect Craig Steely. Contrasting materials make for a warm and serene bathing atmosphere in this Berkeley, California home.

The resawn oak flooring comes from structural beams salvaged from a barn in Ohio’s Allegheny Mountains that dated back to the 1800s. The doors were salvaged from a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Choose meaningful embellishments. “Homeowners tend to focus predominantly on the utilitarian components of their kitchen remodels and place less emphasis on decorative elements such as tile, open shelves, visual art pieces,” says Nicole Tysvaer of Galaxy Homes. “The kitchen is the heart of our homes and the most occupied space. I encourage all of our clients to consider meaningful embellishments that add beauty and a personalized touch to their kitchen remodel, such as a display of heirloom teacups, framed photography from family vacations, or decorative wall art.”