Made from Ipe, this is EndGrain’s contemporary take on the Adirondack chair, an American classic. With slightly exaggerated geometric shapes and an angular feel, the design language was informed by designer Michael Rupich’s background as a graphic designer.

Wood from the property’s felled trees was incorporated into every room in the 3,000-square-foot house.

The plastic Kids Adirondack Chair by Loll Designs offers kids a place to recline after playtime.

The once-sloping space now has climbing vines, a slatted fence, and foxtail agaves.

A grille of walnut slats, designed by Syme and made by the local millworkers MCM, delineates the edge of a new stair with open treads made of hot-rolled steel. Tall Bulthaup cabinets mark the edge of the dining area; Evans, a mechanical engineer, had them custom-made to conceal heating ducts that vent almost invisibly through the top edge.

The firm also designed a slatted screen next to the staircase.

A pair of teak Adirondack chairs allow for quiet repose on the creek-facing porch, which is made from reclaimed Douglas fir. Ceiling fans purchased at a local home improvement store keep the space cool during the brutally hot summers.

Clad in Western red cedar siding and punctuated with floor-to-ceiling windows, this minimalist two-bedroom home boasts sunrise views over the Sonoma hills.

The dining room features 1970s leather-and-brass dining chairs and a table concocted from a brass-and-silver base and a custom lacquered top. The cheerful blue paint enlivening the doorway is from Emery & Cie.

@hillsandgrant: I'd be happy to spend some time in these @lolldesigns adirondacks this holiday weekend. Even in the #rain!

O’Sullivan designed the ceiling “to have a knitted or woven quality like that of wool or silk.” It dives down over the kitchen and dining area, eventually reaching a point at the entry that is low enough to touch. Here, resident Jes Wood leans against the onyx kitchen island while her daughter Ruby hangs out. Replica Jean Prouvé chairs surround the dining table; a vase by Bruce and Estelle Martin for Kamaka Pottery sits on top. The Reel table under the television is by Atelier Oï for B&B Italia.

The caged staircase was designed by architect Patrick Ousey, with whom Flournoy collaborated in the home’s design. Although initially unconvinced by the staircase detail, “it is a great example of how collaboration brings in different perspectives,” says Flournoy.

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.”

A wall of three-inch-wide cedar slats contrasts with the tile backsplash.

East and West Facing Views Take in Sunrise and Sunset

In Bracebridge, Ontario, this cedar cabin with slatted wood screens treads lightly on the land. Read more about the project here.

The cedar screen that extends out from the dining and living rooms traces the line of the actual setback and reads not as a wall of the house but as a delineator of exterior space. The same material is used on the railing on the roof deck and offers a bit of privacy without, according to Braver, “looking like a stockade.”

A house the firm designed for a family in the Adirondacks features a similar stair. "We love the idea of a continuous handrail, a line that the eye can see that makes its way up. We try to use posts about every four treads." The firm experiments with different kinds of enclosure systems, including stainless steel and cotton netting. "It’s all in an attempt to draw the eye away from the railing," Gray says.

Black Ash Baskets for March Adirondack Pack Basket with lid and leather straps. $1,600

This open-concept Amsterdam loft features soaring 15-foot ceilings, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman, and a Jielde light. Throughout the home, Standard Studio architects Wouter Slot and Jurjen van Hulzen favored raw materials, including concrete, oiled oak, and hot-rolled steel, all of which complemented the original space's industrial feel. Tucked smartly underneath the loft, a compact home office features functional built-in shelving and an Eames DSR chair.

Homeowner Susanna prefers a motley set of dining chairs over a coordinated set; that way, guests can pick their favorite when they sit. Photo by: Petra Bindel

Sited on a lake near Bracebridge, Ontario, this small-footprint family cottage was designed by Toronto firm superkül to integrate with its natural surroundings and minimize its environmental impact. The clients, a married couple, had mixed feelings about going completely modern with their cabin's aesthetic, so the architects created a sculptural wood form to bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary. Photo by Shai Gil.

Referencing the motif in the kitchen, wood slats also appear on the rear facade of the home; the variegated cedar planks both modulate light and provide a bit of privacy (above).The garden floor, which accommodates an additional living area and office, also offers access to the backyard.

In this glass-enclosed master bedroom, a LC4 armchair faces the master bed. The moveable frame adjusts along the base, allowing the sitter to switch from upright to full recline, or lounge at a number of other sitting angles.

Designed to echo the style of an adult Adirondack Chair, the Kid’s Adirondack from Loll Designs is perfectly fit for a child. Available in a wide range of colors, the chair is a great outdoor seating choice for a patio, garden, or lawn.

Chair Necessities The couple’s four Chair One dining chairs by Konstantin Grcic for Magis are among their most prized possessions. They had been given their dining table as a wedding gift but couldn’t afford enough chairs to surround it, so they opted for a wooden bench on one side and the Grcic chairs on the other. Davor says he’s pleased they purchased the chairs early in the design process before the budget got really tight. magisdesign.com

By creating a desk out of roof beams, this home office perfectly integrates into an open-plan renovation of a Northern Italian farmhouse.

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.

Sunset from the Front Porch

The dining table, made from a single piece of teak, is a little over 13 feet long and was custom made for the space. It can seat up to 24.

In the living room, an Eames lounge chair is matched with a Richard Conover–designed fiberglass chair in similar proportions. A custom coffee table by Asher Israelow com-plements the industrial lighting by Workstead, affixed to walls painted in Farrow and Ball’s Manor House Gray. The sliding doors leading into the home office were fabricated by Markus Bartenschlager.

An outdoor shower in the lower courtyard includes most of the materials that define the project, including Cor-Ten steel posts, horizontal ipe slats and decking, a custom seat and towel shelf set into a natural boulder, and concrete pavers. The yard includes many elements built for play, like a water feature embedded in a concrete wall that is fed by runoff rainwater collected from the breezeway roof.

The back of the stair shows its solid wood structure.

With its vertical wood slats, the garden fence helps unify the main house and the smaller shed.

For more bedroom ideas, check out our ten tips for clutter-free bedrooms.

The master bedroom is shaded by exterior slats in cumaru, a sustainable tropical wood. Alazraki designed the custom bed frame.