Porch

The home’s copper roof and exterior accents complement the spiral slide. The custom gas lanterns on the porch are from Bevolo in New Orleans.

Light stained wood works well on a more farmhouse or traditional style home, as seen in this project in Newport Beach, California.

Toys and coats are stored in the playroom, to keep the rest of the home neat and tidy.

Ren and Karvelius designed and installed a custom storage piece that doesn’t disturb the original fixtures, like the trim and radiator.

The entry hall is another snapshot of design experimentation with wood built-ins, open cubbies, and simple brass hooks.

This reconfigured Craftsman home in Portland, Oregon, designed by Beebe Skidmore Architects, includes a highly functional mudroom. The exterior siding and windows were kept in place to reference the house’s previous incarnation. Built-in cabinetry with exposed plywood edges and laminate fronts are now up to the task of handling the family’s gear. The mudroom has sight lines to the family nook at the back corner.

The little blue pulls on the built-in timber cabinetry were sourced from a local maker in a hue specifically chosen to match the bricks.

On the opposite wall, a green mesh cabinet for shoes is paired with a wood and metal seating bench. The entry door also has a green mesh detail: a panel that's operable, so the smaller door can be opened when receiving packages.

Floor plan of Forest Pavilion by Signal Architecture & Research

The roofs were designed to guide water to the steel channels, which run the entire width of the house. Joan’s painting studio sits nears the back door, where she can easily step out for fresh air or inspiration.

Joan has always admired midcentury design and architecture, so Signal added a slatted fir divider between the dining room and the guest wing, giving nod to the iconic era without straying from the home’s contemporary, Northwest appeal. A trio of George Nelson Bubble lamps follows the aesthetic lead.

During site excavation, a collection of large, glacial boulders was discovered. Ken, who is interested in geology wanted to keep them on property, so Signal Architecture worked as many as they could into the landscape. The slatted fir wall separates the home’s dining area from the guest wing.

Architect Mark Johnson has long been inspired by the texture produced by traditional Indigenous canoe carving. The design team worked with Jim Barker at British Columbia woodworking studio Barker Manufacturing, to produce Ken and Joan’s cedar door. Its texture was produced using a CNC adze.

The circa-1917 home Abigail and Peter purchased in Washington's Cleveland Park neighborhood came with a double lot and a pool, with a meadow occupying a previous pool location.

The homeowners love that their secret garden is now an extensions of their living space.

The kitchen color palette was influenced by the homeowners' love of early 20th-century paintings of domestic interiors, featuring deep hues in heavy traffic spaces, juxtaposed with lighter natural oak in the glass house.

"On our first site visit, the client showed us a large Welsh dresser which was used for display. While we couldn’t find room for it in the lower ground floor, we did manage to reinterpret it’s functionality as a wall of oak shelving used for storage and display.

The glass house interior features a timber terrazzo floor made from recycled waste wood for a sense of playfulness, warmth, and harmony with the oak frame.