New House 247

Pros: Marble is elegant, heat resistant, and comes in a range of colors. Cons: Its high price, especially for more unusual types like Calacatta marble (known for its purer white and bolder veining compared to more common marble like Carrara), means that it isn’t an option for everyone. It is also quite high maintenance, requiring regular resealing.

A New York City apartment with walnut upper kitchen cabinets has a stainless-steel backsplash that ties into the finish of the fridge and the lower cabinets. The walnut dining room table does quadruple duty as a work station and storage unit, and an eating and entertaining area.

A single bowl sink is self-explanatory: it consists of a sink that is not divided up into separate areas.

A view of the kitchen's back wall shows the bright marriage of the yellow Fireclay tile backsplash with incoming light from the adjacent sliding door and the row of windows just above the hanging Boca Raton blue cabinets. Basked in light, the new kitchen displays an organized and cheerful aesthetic.

In this urban townhouse, a Zodiaq® London Sky countertop wraps the wall behind it to become the backsplash, providing a polished backdrop for design details and vignettes. Its muted color complements dark wood cabinets and rich, metallic accents.

The House of Earth + Light had been featured in the pages of the New York Times and on the cover of Dwell’s premiere issue, and was revisited years later. In the kitchen, an elegant palette of materials defines the open space. The rear counter is sanded stainless steel; the island counter is Purpleheart (an exotic hardwood) with a range by Dacor.

The idea for Simon Pillard and Philippe Rossetti’s Lego kitchen island in Paris sprouted when Pillard put 500 blocks and a day’s worth of work into building a Lego-legged chair. They covered their kitchen island—a simple wooden block—with 20,000 Lego pieces.

In this kitchen and dining room, architect Bergendy Cooke rethought traditional wood panelling using black pigment-stained veneer. The kitchen has expansive surfaces, including a long, wood-topped kitchen island where the couple cook and entertain, and where the children eat and play. "All of the materials were selected for their integrity and longevity," says Bergendy.

A new kitchen at the front of the house completes the trifecta of reworked rooms on the main level. It fits nicely into the notion of balancing new and old elements throughout the house, with oak detailing married to exposed brick, offset by strip lamps. The Hee bar stools are by HAY, the Caravaggio P3 pendants are by Light Years, and the range oven is from Britannia.

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.

Truly Open Eichler Remodel Klopf Architecture, Arterra Landscape Architects, and Flegels Construction updated a classic Eichler open, indoor-outdoor home. Expanding on the original walls of glass and connection to nature that is common in mid-century modern homes. The completely openable walls allow the homeowners to truly open up the living space of the house, transforming it into an open air pavilion, extending the living area outdoors to the private side yards, and taking maximum advantage of indoor-outdoor living opportunities. Taking the concept of borrowed landscape from traditional Japanese architecture, the fountain, concrete bench wall, and natural landscaping bound the indoor-outdoor space. The Truly Open Eichler is a remodeled single-family house in Palo Alto. This 1,712 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

Clear cedar wraps the corner at the approach, adding warmth, texture and visual interest to the entry.

The architects wanted to create as much of a buffer as possible against the urban traffic outside the kitchen. A clerestory window manages to maintain a visual connection with the neighborhood while blocking its noise. The kitchen features Pleat Box pendant lights from Marset and Lio Stools by Roberto Barbieri for Zanotta.

Sleek Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, along with Caesarstone countertops, complete the kitchen.

"The most challenging part of the design was fusing the old part of the house with the new addition," says principal architect Alex Terry. The character and architectural integrity of the single-level 1950s ranch house was thoughtfully reconsidered during the addition and remodel. The home’s front porch, typical of the period, was refreshed with Ipe decking and railing.

Located in Sierra Madre, California, an existing ranch home with clean architectural geometry, was transformed into a contemporary home with an expanded open floor plan, improved circulation and access, and carefully placed clerestory windows. On the exterior, revised garage orientation eliminates excessive driveway paving and reestablishes the front yard as usable space.

Walnut storage, both open and closed, frames a black-painted wall with a fireplace at its center. The wall treatment can also hide a future television. "A dark wall is a great way to keep a large screen from feeling like a big black hole on the wall," notes the firm.

The bathroom fixtures include Waterworks, Duravit, Kohler, and Geberit.