Griffin’s room, which is exactly the same size as his brother’s, gets good light from the backyard.

Object #3, another early prototype that, while not exactly functional, informed the design of later pieces.

Milla and Nigel thought the kitchen island should anchor the first floor, and they wanted colors that matched the frescoes. Stone specialist Nick Blok found exactly what they were looking for: a monolithic piece of Italian quartzite with muted pinks and umbers in the veining.

The X-shaped support in the steel frame acts exactly like the smaller version you might find on a bookshelf—helping maintain the frame’s rigidity and tensile strength. Cathy models a vintage Thai muumuu.

Bruce and Kirsty are obsessively tidy, so copious storage was a must. An entire wall in their bathroom opens to reveal a cabinet that is exactly the depth of a fat roll of toilet paper, and one of their kitchen cupboards was specially fireproofed in order to house that dastardly appliance, the toaster.

Type Five's planning process makes it possible for owners to choose exactly where windows go. In this ADU, two windows overlook surrounding trees.

“We originally gave Brothers Cement an orange color that they couldn't match exactly, but we ended up with that beautiful yellow color, so we were happy,” Barker says.

To stay within budget, Han and Mihalyo spent seven months and all of their free time building the house. As a result, the couple is well- acquainted with every square inch of their home. As Han says, “If there’s a nail in the wall, we know exactly what’s behind it.”

A walnut-wrapped stereo system fits perfectly in the allotted space. "It really looks exactly like what you would expect in a midcentury modern house from that era," says Glenn.

Pam and Frank recently tasked Light and Air Architecture with remodeling this loft in New York City to get better natural light. “That’s exactly what we were looking for, is light and air,” says Frank.

After buying an Echo Park bungalow, the homeowners, who originally intended to renovate the small home, realized the potential of building an entirely new dwelling in place of the existing garage. It offered better views of the neighborhood and the opportunity to design exactly what they wanted.

The Hollywood Regency–style home sits almost exactly as Elrod left it. The oversized doors feature antique Moroccan brass door pulls made from a four-poster bed.

Dunbar describes the bathroom as an outside-in room because it has light, air, and sometimes, when it drizzles and the skylight left open, even rain. Designed for exactly these circumstances, a blue-glass mosaic tile floor is laid at an angle to drain with ease.

Built as part of a functional farmhouse, the original building's ground floor was used to store food and animals, a situation that didn't exactly call for expansive views or large amounts of natural light. Vieira da Silva maintained a similar layout over the two-story home, with social areas on the upper floor and bedrooms on the ground floor, but opened up the lower level with large windows. "With the pre-existing stone walls we created patios, keeping a distance [between the walls] so we could have big openings, and create a close and intense relationship with the landscape and the ruin itself."

“One of the great things about the Marvin lift-and-slide doors is how they disappear into the pockets,” notes Meelena. “It’s not a typical solution, and it offers exactly what we hoped to achieve with this home. We wanted to foster an intimate connection with the outdoors.”

"I'm not trying to do anything new in my work," Spellman states. "I'm simply trying to do it in my own way, and I'm still figuring out what exactly 'my own way' is."

"The canopy structure was carefully edited down to only its essential parts," explain the architects. "Every component was designed so that each member is purposeful and is exactly the size and shape it needs to be and no more. The fabrication and assembly process was fully considered to allow for straightforward construction."

The master suite is on the ground floor and accessed via a home office. The pendant light over the bed is a commissioned custom fabrication by Stephen White made from dowels and rice paper. "We didn’t know exactly what we were going to get until it arrived," explained Haines, "but it is spectacular."

After the previous owners had replaced the original Victorian fireplace with a dated 1950s tiled version, the couple turned to a reclamation yard for the perfect replacement. “We knew exactly what kind of fireplace would have been in a house of this period,” says Alex.

“From the day we got our house, I knew exactly how I wanted it done,” says Mia Dalgas, who led the renovation of her family’s 1880s home in Copenhagen’s Potato Rows district. One of the biggest transformations was the addition of a glass-enclosed lacquered wood staircase.

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Located on the rural outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, Serenbe is a picturesque community comprising four hamlets that focus on arts, agriculture, health, and education. Designed to be a center for quiet living for creatives and their families, the newest development, Mado, wants to focus on bringing the outdoors in, but in a modern setting. This is exactly the vibe that Iowa– and Serenbe–based designer Rebecca Cartwright achieved with The Naturally House, a tree house-inspired haven.

In dire need of some landscaping, the porch looked disheveled, with a tiny door hiding behind the columns—not exactly the type of grand entry the Masons envisioned for visiting friends and family.

During the time he spent exploring the West, Spellman lived and worked in an old Ford van that ran off of vegetable oil. "I lived in the van on and off for two years, maybe more—I can't remember how long exactly" he says. "Most of the time it was fueled by used cooking oil out of grease traps, or other people's trash. It was liberating."

“Our process is such that once the client has the trailer, we spend a great deal of effort to design the airstream in a 3-D CAD program so that we know exactly what we are building, and the client can visualize the space prior to build,” Stover says. “This often allows us to makes changes to the design to refine it further prior to build, in order to better meet the client’s needs and desires.”

Halfway through a pregnancy isn’t exactly the ideal time to buy a house. So after spending months scouting San Francisco’s Victorians and turnkey cookie-cutters—and almost defecting to the East Bay—Lorena Siminovich and Esteban Kerner decided to put the hunt on hold until after their baby was born. But then one afternoon Kerner, a design director with Old Navy, logged on to Craigslist on a whim. He saw a below-market listing for a single-family home in Noe Valley, their neighborhood of choice. With crumbly brick cladding, peeling rust-brown paint, and rotting garage doors, the house lacked curb appeal. But the Argentine couple was drawn to the interior. "It was amazing and strange at the same time," says Kerner of the 1,485-square-foot, multilevel, midcentury maze. "Mind-boggling," adds Siminovich. "It was just a knot of doors and a series of insane stairs to nowhere."

“Beyond the age of information is the age of choices.” Says Demetrios of this quote, “Charles said this at the Aspen Design Conference in 1971, and that is exactly where we are today. When you think about it, the problem is not information, the problem is analyzing it, figuring out how to make sense of it and doing the appropriate thing with it. That’s the thinking that to me is so powerful.”

Imagine waking up in a room with a stunning view, eating your breakfast on a terrace, walking to a secluded beach for a short dip in the ocean, then drinking wine near a private pool while watching the sunset. That is exactly what Casa Tiny offers to its guests, who can now rent it through Boutique Homes. The cozy house is located on the Oaxaca Coast in Mexico near Casa Wabi, an artists’ retreat founded by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi.

The moment Jussi-Pekka saw the view, he knew he had found the right site. The had been listed for €79,000, but I managed to get it for €20,000. That gave me the flexibility to build exactly what I wanted.

"At 7:30 a.m. exactly, in August, when I have to get the kids to breakfast for camp, the red triangle will be right at the bathtub," says Edwards Anker. "In the winter, the yellow triangle that is not visible in summer, will actually project onto the back wall of the kitchen, along with the play of the reflecting water, while I'm making coffee, or for brunch, at 9:30 a.m. I can know what time it is by just looking at the wall."

A vintage wood lamp and turned bowl stands next to the bed. "We wanted to incorporate elements used in residential homes," Hollis says of the eclectic medley of accessories and furnishings in the space. "These would be items that you would collect over time. They don't exactly match, but they all work together—they create a relaxed casual environment while still elevating the interior and amenities to what you expect from a world-class luxury property."

Room 606 in the hotel is preserved exactly as Jacobsen designed it.

BEFORE: The hallway wasn't exactly welcoming.

Guardrails line the second-floor family room, which features wall-to-wall sliding glass windows. The minimal furnishings include a Barcelona chair and a Togo sofa, with a green cube containing a powder room at one end. Three bedrooms and the balance of the bathroom are discreetly tucked behind a sleek wall. “The skeleton of the house is exactly the same as it was before,” says Uzi of the transformative redesign. “All the beams were kept.”

"Our house is exactly like this, only smaller," Kevin says.

The 2000 original project. Exactly how she was built.