Photos for danny seos upcycling on Dwell.com

Focusing on products made Stateside wasn’t Danny Seo’s first priority for his kitchen renovation—instead, he had one specific requirement: stainless-steel cabinets to replace the original, musty wood ones.

Onstage, green lifestyle expert and media personality Danny Seo will speak about sourcing American kitchen products, and preview the kitchen renovation inside his 1950s rural Pennsylvania home, to be featured in the July/August issue of Dwell. Photo by David Englehardt.

Danny envisioned the space between the ADU and the house as an informal place to gather. "It creates a sort of courtyard sensibility, which works for our intergenerational family dynamics."

At the front of the main house, architect Danny Lim framed one of the original windows with new trim to give it a more modern feel and installed limestone on the porch and steps.

Danny fitted the kitchen into an alcove outfitted with Ikea cabinets and Semihandmade fronts. The refrigerator is by LG. On the jute rug from Armadillo, chairs from Threshold join a table from Inside Weather.

Photography: Danny Bright

The living room has a vintage Milo Baughman couch with cushions fashioned from Angora mohair from Architex. The coffee table is vintage, as is the side table base, given a custom stone top. A Seneca Table Lamp is by Danny Kaplan, while the artwork over the couch is by Patton Miller.

In addition to saving on construction costs, upcycling an old container can be an eco-friendly alternative to building from the ground up.

Danny Seo replaced the wood cabinets of his kitchen with stainless-steel models. As a professional photo stylist, he needed to accommodate a vast collection of kitchen items, such as multiples of plates, wooden bowls, and utensils.

Made up of old glass shades sourced through eBay, Studio Jon Male's up-cycled Rebay floor lamps made for an impressive display at TENT London

Children streaming in for a workshop are greeted by an Eichler-inspired playhouse (dubbed the “Tikeler”) designed and built by The Butterfly Joint’s founder, Danny Montoya.

In ARCHITECTUREFIRM’s James River House, the 28-foot-long Series 600 Multi-Slide door is comprised of five 10-foot-tall panels of dual-paned, low-E glass, which helps keep the house warm during Virginia winters. All windows and doors feature thermally broken aluminum. “Western Window Systems,” says architect Danny MacNelly, “does a great aluminum product that isn’t very expensive. The details are minimal, clean, and refined.”

Hailing from Seoul, Jeonghwa Seo studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

In the kitchen, recycled PET cabinetry from IKEA and Corian countertops play to the upcycling element of LOT-EK's ethos. A Swell Wide pendant by Pablo Pardo illuminates a custom dining table by From the Source and the surrounding Redsmith dining chairs from Anthropologie.

Kurokawa and Fishman's son Danny Fishman-Engel enjoys time away from the city by studying magic tricks in his bedroom. Sliding slatted doors separate the asymmetrical downstairs spaces.

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 14: (L-R) Interior designer Thom Filicia, LG Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing James Fishler, environmental lifestyle expert Danny Seo, Vice President of Project Sales at Grohe America Tom Santer, President of ASID NY Jacqueline Hosford, and SHFT.com co-founders actor-filmmaker Adrian Grenier and film producer Peter Glatzer attend LG Electronics' and SHFT's Evening of Design at Museum Of Arts And Design on November 14, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Fernando Leon/Getty Images for LG) *** Local Caption *** Thom Filicia;James Fishler;Danny Seo;Tom Santer;Jacqueline Hosford;Adrian Grenier;Peter Glatzer

Katie and Danny MacNelly met as University of Virginia architecture students and started their own practice, ARCHITECTUREFIRM, along with another former UVA classmate. Together, the couple designed and built their family’s country retreat, a three-volume residence near Virginia’s James River.

“I didn’t want marble or granite because they aren’t sustainable,” says Seo. “Laminate is one of the few surfaces recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council toward LEED certification. Plus it’s affordable and I liked the way it looked—a triple whammy.”

Desiring a home in a natural setting for their three sons, ages 5, 9, and 10, architects Katie and Danny MacNelly built a three-volume residence near Virginia’s James River. With a focus on outdoor social spaces, Katie likens the overall program to “loose coals around a campfire.”

Artist Danny Heller and Henry Urbach, Director of The Glass House, enjoyed their re-imagined martinis in a midcentury living room.

The Material Container series also includes tables.

Prolific Dutch designer Danny Venlet rebuilds his roost in Brussels. A spare layout marks the master suite on the third floor. The rectangular KOS bathtub, integrated into an elevated plywood platform, pairs with Gert Van Der Vloet’s Cut Low lounge in Corian. The couple used elements of a photo they took of one of Venlet’s designs to create the graphic wall covering.