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Dwell's Favorite Home Design Ideas and Photos

The bathrooms are inspired by spa chambers and include Japanese-style soaking tubs.
In lieu of a checkerboard effect, Kovel kept his carpet squares all vibrantly verdant. With the bamboo cabinets and countertops the whole space has a pastoral feel. “I wanted it to be like the Bradys’ backyard,” he says.
The facade will go gray and silver natural, so its verticality, texture and colors will blend in with the vertical tree trunks of the forest.
The Opdahl House, designed by Edward Killingsworth for Richard and Joyce Opdahl, is located on the island of Naples, in Long Beach, California, and the design responds to the constraints imposed by the compact site.Unlike the neighbors, whose homes unflinchingly abut their property lines, Killingsworth set the Opdahl House 42 feet back from the street, dedicating half of the lot to a dramatic entryway that includes a carport, garden, and reflecting pool. The effect is one of entering a private sanctuary.
Colourful furnishings animate the space. Thonet armchair, Jardan Nook lounge and Hay side tables provide a comfortable, deliberately low key setting.
Exterior of Pink House from the street. The entryway is recessed to enhance the spatial notion of soild and void.
The design allows each volume to assert its independence while interacting with the other buildings in a rhythmic sequence.
The exterior of the house consists of sandblasted masonry and Ferrari shade sails stretched on a steel frame.
The house comprises a series of modules, with the main living areas occupying the center and the master bedroom on the right. A large deck juts off the living room.
The low windows in the master bedroom focus the view on the backyard, not the neighbors. Christopher designed the solid poplar platform bed.
Located off of the kitchen, Vivi’s office disappears behind sliding walls covered in black chalkboard paint from Behr.
Front view of the FlatPak House in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When the architect first told his wife about his idea, she said, “It’s about time you focus on a house for me!” He continues, “It’s like the old story about the cobbler whose kids have no shoes.”
Front facade
Windows transcend floor levels to discretely frame views of the surrounding neighborhood, offering slices of the vistas beyond.
Tosdevin says Miele has always been an easy fit for him and his clients, and sites the appliances’ longevity as a big factor. “Dealing with companies you trust and that stand behind their product make business more pleasurable.”
Architect Lorcan O’Herlihy created a residence for himself and his wife, Cornelia, in Venice, California.
Konstantin Grcic’s Venus chairs for ClassiCon surround a table by Poliform in the formal dining room. Hill selected the Flos chandelier designed by Marcel Wanders for its “Old World reverence.” The sleek fireplace mantel was designed by Hill and cobbled together onsite from three solid slabs of limestone.
In the outdoor dining room, wire chairs by Harry Bertoia for Knoll surround a mango wood table made by a local carpenter, Diego Madrazo.
The courtyard is just one of many open spaces that will be highly utilized—in the non-winter months anyway. Concrete worked well with developing the language of FlatPak. The second level is a wood panel that can be clad in corrugated metal or cedar—different layers that can be plugged in like covers on your cellphone.
Marco V. Morelli says his Studio Shed is the perfect refuge. “It’s changed my life for the better,” he says. “I’ve gotten so much more work done, and I think my marital relations are much better because I have a place of my own.”
A departure from the mod-meets-baroque dining room, Turin’s breakfast area is far more sedate. She and her daughter, Helena, have a chat at a Progetto 1 table by Monica Armani for B&B Italia surrounded by four Lia chairs by Roberto Barbieri for Zanotta. The painting behind Helena is by Ricci Albenda.
A vintage stool, a design that once was a staple of Greek classrooms, is tucked under the office desk on a landing leading to a balcony. The visual theme of the vertical wooden slats repeats itself here, including on a closet door. “They have no handles,” Ritenour says of the closet doors. “The lines are the door handles; you have to know to grab them.”
In the dining room, a Smoke chair by Marten Baas for Moooi keeps company with a glass-and-ceramic vase by Hella Jongerius and a mirrored steel painting by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto.
"My dogma is inspired by a Japanese saying that an object gets its energy from three different elements: the material it is made out of, the person who made it, and the people who cared for it," says Mette. The cabins have been built of wood carried through the forest.
The dining area has a large table where family members can sit together but engage in different activities, exemplifying how a space can be at once communal and private.
Like the windows, the front door is also a square.
Exposed trusses celebrate the home's timber construction.
The former dining room is now home to Russell and Fontanez’s custom kitchen, designed by LOT-EK and fabricated by Chef Restaurant Supplies. “We love to entertain,” Russell says. “Before, the galley kitchen was in the hallway; now we can cook and still be a part of the party.” The space-saving setup, which adjoins the living room, features stainless steel–paneled cabinets, DuPont Corian countertops, Onda stools by Jesus Gasca for Stua, and fixtures and appliances by Grohe, Liebherr, and Miele. To maximize space, the designers specified that the cabinets be built around a former fireplace in the kitchen. “Because there’s a bump out where the chimney is, we turned the sink lengthwise,” Lignano says. “The cabinet directly overhead is only four inches deep, so it’s just a huge spice rack.” The island provides ample additional storage.
At once part of the city and protected from it, the house benefits from plenty of open space and light and creates its own courtyard enclosure.
The stainless steel Bulthaup kitchen “cost as much as a small house,” said Spiekermann, though he did get a discount: Bulthaup is one of his clients.
Case Inlet Retreat
The wall beneath the stairs holds hidden storage, including an Enomatic wine dispenser and Sub-Zero refrigerated drawers.
The new volume houses the dining area, which includes stairs to the bedrooms. The table is from Blake Avenue and the walnut chairs are from Room & Board. “You don’t want bright colors to take away from that relationship between the interior and the exterior,” Walker says.
He worked around existing oak and eucalyptus trees for the new building, and retained the vernacular of an original barn, at right, where Frankel hosts concerts. Check out MVRDV's Balancing Barn.
The living area is appointed with small, efficient furnishings, including a rolling tray table by Hans Bolling and a Diplomat Sleeper Sofa by Blu Dot (a second one is situated opposite the Murphy bed).
The landscaping appears to be based on the mullet principle: business in the front, as seen here (manicured grid lawn, with native vegetation sprouting in careful symmetry), party in the back (sunflowers and wild mountain grass growing in harmonious chaos).
On his patio are a table and chairs from the 1968 Ozoo collection by Marc Berthier for Roche Bobois.
Blocked from the wind, a deck at the rear of the house is a favorite place for sunbathing and also shelters planters of herbs.
Passageways were carefully planned to present intriguing interior perspectives.
The Burkes eliminated glare by minimizing the number of windows on the east and west sides of their house. On the south, though, windows are taller and offer views of trees even though the house is in the heart of downtown Charlottesville. The direct light that enters through the flanks of the house is mediated via a sophisticated array of blinds, tints, a trellis calibrated to cut light from April through August, and several bald cypress trees that provide shade in summer but lose their leaves in winter, allowing light (and heat) to infuse the house. Baby cypress trees, about nine feet tall, should cost around $100 each at your local nursery.
All outposts are a two-hour drive (or less) from its respective city, without traffic.
The cabins—all designed in-house—sport a minimalist aesthetic, deliberately pared-down to let nature take the spotlight.
An attentive sensitivity to site played into nearly every aspect of both the exterior andinterior spaces of the home. Architect Peter Rose collaborated with landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, who worked to craft and maintain the wild, organic feel of the environs. Will Parry, a local builder, custom-fabricated all of the sustainably harvested Spanish cedar-and-glass windows and skylights throughout. Here, a vertical-swinging window at the end of the entry hallway opens directly to a lush expanse of vegetation.
The home’s kitchen features dual Miele ovens, Thermador refrigerator and freezer, and Thermador induction cooktop. A feature wall clad in natural Carrara marble sits behind sliding cabinet uppers. Paola Lenti Heron counter stools in ‘verde scuro,’ coordinate with custom cabinet fronts, accented with Spinneybeck leather pulls.
House in Tokyo is a minimal residence designed by Ako Nagao + miCo for a couple who required a music studio. The site is located between reinforced concrete mid-to-high-rise apartments and an old wooden housing area. The volume needed to be closed and
For the kitchen, Tyler hired David Restorick, a furniture maker and friend, to build an island for storage and to wrap Ikea cabinets with oak for a customized look. He also built a staircase that doubles as display space for Tyler’s vast collection of colorful cookware by the likes of Finel, Copco, Cathrineholm, Jens Quistgaard, and Stig Lindberg.
In the kitchen, Pirman and Tetreault gather around a custom Corian island with a Tara faucet by Dornbracht. Vintage Cees Braakman Combex series chairs and a marble Florence Knoll table bring natural materials to an architectural shell built from concrete, glass, and steel.
To enlarge the bathroom, they integrated the closet space into the new bathroom, and thus had to create new storage. They designed a custom walnut bed wall in the master bedroom that contains built-in wardrobes.
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Dwell's favorite photos of modern homes and design ideas. From midcentury gems, prefabricated units, and eye-opening renovations, to shipping container construction and custom trailers and campers, these projects display the best from Dwell Magazine and submitted by the Dwell community. Here, you'll find ideas for every room in the house, whether it be kitchen, bath, bedroom, living, or dining—and beyond.