Designer Christiane Hogner, Bruxelles

Though most of the home's interior comes without a splashy designer's name attached, the bathroom is kitted out with a toilet, sink, and bath/shower from Jasper Morrison's line for Ideal Standard. The cabinets are from an Ikea kitchen system.

A bedroom occupies the top of each tower; a ladder leads to a sleeping nook and an east-facing window seat in the Sunrise suite.

The thrill of a home renovation can quickly be diminished by unforeseen circumstances, stretched budgets, and other unexpected issues. The good news is that most of the time these problems can be mitigated, if not avoided entirely, by keeping an eye out for warning signals. Read on as we go through essential home renovation tips to consider before kicking off your own revamp.

Bernhardt Design traveled to El Salvador to present The Carrot Concept, works from a design collective in El Salvador. Their products from a variety of designers all use bright color.

A flat roof and all-white interior unifies the home's three volumes.

The Lais designed their house to be theirs forever. As such, they were able to make design moves that made sense for themselves but that wouldn't have high resale value, like the Japanese-style master bathroom in the middle of the second floor instead of off of the master bedroom. The traditional setup features bath stools from Muji for washing off.

Lassen designed all the furniture with the exception of a few items, like the vintage Chairman armchair by Henrik Tengler and white IKEA sofas. “To keep it simple, we only used natural colors from wood inside, with everything else being white,” Lassen says.

Turin designed the bed, console, and side tables in the master bedroom. The room gets plenty of illumination through the windows, which she had remade to match the 1925 detailing and covered in translucent Trevira fabric curtains by Rogers and Goffigon. “They provide privacy but lots of light comes through.”

The designers clad all interior walls with thin strips of pine and built all the furnishings. In the bedroom, hinged panels on either side of the mattress provide hidden storage.

Concept drawing of the home. It ultimately came to $225 per square foot, which is falls in the lower end of custom construction costs in Northern California

As rich as the tech landscape is today, CES has always been about the innovation that lies ahead, just outside our grasp. That's why Whirlpool set up a high-concept vision for the connected kitchen of tomorrow, including a scanner that swipes groceries and displays their health information on a backsplash, and an in-sink dishwasher for small loads. While Whirlpool has no plans to bring these appliances to market yet, their day might not be far off: the prototypes at CES were all working.

Concept Sketch for Together by Matt Pyke (2014) Developed by Matt Pyke, this interactive installation is like doodling on steroids; users submit drawings via a mobile app, which are then added and animated to a group display. Image courtesy of Universal Everything

MNML sought out to create an all-season ride that exemplified the idea of rugged refinement, as Watson put it, reflecting the studio’s usual philosophy of reduction and purity. The team tackled the problem by doing exhaustive field research and then building a story—a day in the life of a cyclist that would serve as the litmus test for whether the final design really works. Chicago shapes the narrative—dealing with inclement weather, hauling a ride up to a walkup apartment ,and navigating potholes. Photo courtesy of MNML.

Konishi and Gaffney's bedroom is fairly austere, though a pair of dormers let in lovely natural light.

The interior showcases the roof's laminated wood beams. A Panton chair takes the seat of honor at the dining table.

In the rendering for the zeroHouse, the building appears to be both a harmonious addition to the landscape and a harbinger of future architectural forms.

The concept, called Vooking, was developed for the growing market of vegetarians, vegans and “flexitarians” (otherwise known as part-time vegetarians) in mind. Comprised of seven units divided into “passive” and “active” cooking zones, the concept kitchen contains a mixture of intriguing components, from a custom spice and built-in mortar/pestle station to an integrated sprout garden. Backed by big-name corporations like Gaggenau, Franke, and Dornbracht, the design team hopes to influence both the meat-eschewing consumer and the kitchen industry at large. Courtesy of Michael Liebert.

"Balcony" was the most popular search term on Hemnet in 2014.

“We consider the notion of privacy to be protection of our own individuality.”—ArchitectS Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen

The “active zone” illustrated here in numbers 01-03 contains the sink-sprout unit, the spice-cutting unit, and the cooktop. The “passive zone” illustrated in numbers 04-07 has what the team refer to as a cooling unit, a grain unit, a farming unit, and an oven unit.

GE Micro Kitchen Concept GE’s new product line aims to give urban and small space dwellers more suitable and ergonomic appliances, all contained within a single, “monoblock” structure. Image by GE

This stunning concept, a bid to design a future-forward skyscraper for Stockholm, appears like a kind of living building, with the terraced, diamond-shaped facade that acts like a multi-story trellis. Berg | C.F. Møller Architects conceived of this 34-story structure as a beacon, and its airy form and clean finish certainly would stand as a shining example of the Scandinavian aesthetic.

The +POOL concept aims to bring a giant floating pool to the East River of Manhattan. It will filter up to a half million gallons of river water each day, and serve as a public amenity.

The Guiuan National High School, illustrated as mass shelter during a natural disaster. Says To: "The challenge was, 'How can we create a school that is inviting and resilient at the same time without looking like a bunker that would always remind people of the next possible typhoon hitting land?'"

Open concept home design offered on first floor in Amelia II by DJK Homes

This Nordic kitchen shows why white spaces aren't all the same. Frosted glass and veiny marble offset the milky Eames shell chairs in this photo from @tinashome.

In the kitchen, glossy white MDF and quartz countertops allow for maximum light reflection, as do the white walls and ceilings. The stools are from Zone Maison.

Although the two apartments were stacked vertically, their individual systems and layout were quite different. The limited horizontal overlap meant that the owners and design team had to give careful thought to the connective elements, and how the family would ultimately circulate through the home. One of the key pieces to the puzzle was finding a place for the interior stairs. Says Bangia Agostinho principal Anshu Bangia, “There was a challenge to find an appropriate location to cut a new stair opening between the apartments, and then have the new stair coordinate with the existing one to form a logical sequence of circulation between the three levels.”

Future additions to the series include a look inside the IMF with Liaquat Ahamed and a tour of the technology firm Alcatel-Lucent with Douglas Coupland. If access is power, these books could be revolutionary.

Arvet by Trigueiros Architecture This unorthodox take on the traditional Swedish log cabin stacks angled wood pieces to create a curved facade. The build-it-yourself concept calls to mind Lincoln Logs; it can be assembled from a set of numbered pieces.

Two Black Sheds incorporates all the conventional aspects of a weekend retreat in a rather unconventional way.

The spice unit is a major feature in the concept, as the design team points out that herbs feature prominently into most vegetarian cuisine. A large built-in mortar and pestle is surrounded by Dekton, and the two removable wood cutting boards also fit perfectly over the sink unit. Spices and herbs are stored within 36 custom terra-cotta jars. Also notice the iPad docking station at top.

MAT-TER chose bamboo as the primary building material, "in order to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible throughout all stages of the building's lifespan," says To. The bamboo and interior modular units resist the effects of climate change and are flexible to local repair should a disaster incur damage. These interior units support each other and the main flooring system and are also elevated aboveground on a grid of concrete pilotis "to allow wind to pass underneath and protect flooding."

Teacher and resident Eric Schneider’s 450-square-foot space needed to be able to accommodate individual areas for cooking, storage, sleeping, entertaining, and, of course, working—without filling the diminutive abode with furniture, or eliciting claustrophobia by chopping it into tiny spaces. The simple and elegant solution was to knock down most of the apartment’s walls, and concentrate all of the living space’s functionality—kitchen storage, closet, bar, bed, lighting, and office—into a single, transformer-like cabinetry unit.

The cook station is outfitted with a Teppan Yaki grill alongside a normal two-ring gas hob unit and a wok gas unit. The concept team, which includes designers Mario Zeppetzauer, Stefan Radinger, and Stefan Degn, chef Harald Hochettlinger, and master carpenter Gerhard Spitzbart, are careful to point out that they specified gas because “we wanted quality” but with this caveat: "Above all in terms of energy efficiency we see the induction hob as a comparable alternative.”