Sliding doors cast shadows across the concrete floor.

The Perth residence of Renee Coleman via the Design Files.

Pentimento’s true versatility is revealed with each new tenant who inhabits the structure. As Nicolas demonstrates, the polished concrete floors make for an ideal biking surface. When playtime is over, he hangs his bike on the wall by the front door, suspending it from the handlebars to keep the floor tidy.

Concrete floors and an Ikea kitchen and spice rack make for an affordable, cleanly geometric aesthetic at the back of the bottom floor. The appliances are by Frigidaire, and the black countertops are sealed with Eco Tuff by Eco Procote.

A custom pivot door by Archispec opens onto a foyer with a poured-concrete floor. The oil painting at right is by Derrick Buisch.

The sculpture on the wall is by artist Peter Dudek, a friend of the family, and the pendants are by Glashütte Limburg. Baumann made a point to integrate industrial materials throughout, exposing steel beams and setting the floor in concrete.

The renovated stable's living room is extra bright thanks to walls painted with Benjamin Moore’s Atrium White and reflective polished concrete floors. The latter conceal a radiant heating system.

A polished concrete floor adds an industrial touch. The oven is Siemens, and the cooktop and dishwasher are Miele. The kitchen island is a concrete benchtop resting on a custom steel frame. The pendants are refurbished “Saturn” pendants by Fog & Morup. Curtains allow the residents to divide the space.

A nine-foot-tall door covered with quarter-inch white oak slides along a ceiling rail and can be moved with just a finger to close off Don and Lisa’s kitchen or bedroom. Made of wood and metal, and welded onsite, the door moves along 400-pound-capacity rollers by McMaster-Carr. A matching sliding door opposite hides a storage area. “Because of their size, the doors had to be made inside,” says Don, who did the job himself. mcmaster.com

Idée Concrète To get a concrete look for the floors throughout the house, the team first considered Pandomo flooring, a slick treat-ment that would be even more expensive than a standard finish. Instead, says Winterhalder, they experimented with raw materials. “I’d call the suppliers and say, ‘Do you have something grayer?’ They thought I was crazy.” In the end, instead of a concrete look, the couple went with actual concrete—at a fifth of the price. pandomo.de

Oiled concrete floors inform the interior of the Stanwood residence.

Pros: Concrete countertops are durable, resistant to heat, and can be less expensive than natural stone, especially when completed as a DIY project. Cons: Concrete must be sealed before being used; otherwise, its porous nature means that it will stain very easily.

Yumi (left) and Maya (right) cheese around on the steps leading into the front door. Inside, there is ample space for removing and leaving one's shoes, another Japanese element.

Along with its durability, concrete requires very little maintenance.

The cavernous living room takes advantage of its height with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Concrete is used for the walls and ceiling and stone for the floors to maintain an urban, industrial feeling.

Don designed and built the white-oak kitchen table, which is cantilevered so knees don’t bump the underpinnings.

The cabinets are from Ikea, the range is by GE, and the Jenn-Air refrigerator is tucked unobtrusively into the pantry wall. The troweled concrete floor was poured in place by the builder, Peter Knudsen.

If you're looking for the ultimate minimalist bed frame, a platform bed with edges that extend beyond the mattress allow it to double as a bedside table, eliminating the need for other furniture.

Entrance By moving the foot of the stairway away from the front door, Bischoff and his team carved out a transition point from the stoop and sidewalk below, providing a welcome measure of privacy. (Visitors must scale the steps and stand at the door before they can peer in.) The concrete floor tiles were left over from an earlier MADE project. “We didn’t have an equal balance of black and white or even the right sizes,” Bischoff says, “so we made a design moment out of what we had.” Saving on the floor tiles meant that Casale and Crofton could spring for hand-finished wallpaper by Swedish company Sandberg.

The home's different levels create a playful experience for the inhabitants. The concrete floor references the building’s past use as a garage for ambulances.

The Parisian flat that American-born architect Michael Herrman shares with his wife, Cécile, and their 2-year-old daughter, Rose, had been nearly untouched since the 1790s, when it was built. “But I wanted to try and reveal some of its age in a fresh new context,” Herrman said.

Dunlop demonstrates the deck’s secondary use: as a launching pad into the concrete plunge pool on the first floor.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden.

The curving white wall in architect Jay Atherton’s bedroom is optimally sited to capture shadows from the redbud tree outside his window. The bed rests on a concrete floor. "It was important that the rooms be pure spaces," says Cy Keener, a carpenter, who helped design and construct the spartan home in Phoenix.

Luke channels Jimi on the concrete floor of the open living and dining room.

Six-year-old twins Nicolas and Constanza use Pentimento as their “little battleground,” says Pasternak. “They have some options here that they will not find anywhere else.” Among those options are a climbing wall offering easy access to the roof.

Dulux Ferrodor 810 industrial paint in Mid Grey, dark formply timber ceiling cladding, and concrete floors give the interiors a brooding intensity.

The downstairs area is floored in polished concrete, and flanked on the north side by huge full-height windows through which passive heat is gathered. The majority of the winter heating, however, is from a ground source heat pump that uses the latent energy in the earth — a relatively new solution in New Zealand.

A spacious deck was created as part of the addition. A cantilevered concrete bench stretches out to the rear garden and complements the adjacent concrete wall.

When Belgian fashion retailer Nathalie Vandemoortele was seeking a new nest for her brood, she stumbled upon a fortresslike house in the countryside designed in 1972 by a pair of Ghent architects, Johan Raman and Fritz Schaffrath. While the Brutalist concrete architecture and petite but lush gardens suited her tastes to a tee, the interiors needed a few updates.

In the house’s front room Monkman relaxes on a stool from local retailer Andrew Richard Designs. A new window system draws in sunlight and views of the front courtyard designed by local landscape architect Terry McGlade, the building’s former owner.

Every room in the house looks onto an outdoor space. Click here to see more modern homes that use courtyards as a design element.

Rough, scrubbed concrete and rounder plastering contrast with the restored timber roof beautifully.

Rocks dug up during construction were saved and incorporated into the poured-concrete floors and walls. Hydronic heating coils in the floor are augmented by a wood stove during the damp winters.