NArchitekTURA chose a monochromatic white interior for its "Apartment of the Future—R&D Laboratory" in Dobrodzień, Poland, taking a cue from the design of contemporary cellphones and other mobile devices.

A view of one of the bedrooms from a courtyard.

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.

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.

View Northeast

Designed for an artist and entrepreneur client, this guest house features lots of light, access to the outdoors, and an industrial vibe.

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.

Kelsey: 1890 Spindrift Drive One of Dwell's go-to bloggers, Diana Moss, stumbled upon these great old photographs in the LIFE magazine archive. They depict a house in La Jolla, California, designed by architect William Kesling in 1946-47. The house was built for "retired bachelor Walton MacConnell," who, LIFE wrote, "settled down in the elegant, sunny little town… As a setting for this life he has built himself a dramatic, glossy, $40,000 home which hugs the edge of a 50-foot seaside cliff." It's very mod, and accented by more than one bathing beauties.

Chip Drive by Pantone, from $14 at pantone.com An inexpensive stocking-stuffer that lets you organize your digital files according to year and color, the Pantone USB flash drive (seen here in 2015 Color of the Year, Marsala) comes in 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB sizes. Keep an eye peeled for Pantone's 2016 color announcement soon.

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.”

"We really love to cook and much of our home life revolves around our kitchen. When we have friends over it’s great to buzz around here; it’s almost like a cooking show. We’re a very equal couple. We wanted the kitchen island to be a single form that we could both use. We can both cook and we can both wash the dishes. The whole thing is really easy to clean as it’s just one main surface that you can wipe down. So the preparation surfaces, the hob [cooktop], and the sink are accessible from both sides. It’s a simple, fun, form-follows-function principle: Store, wash, prepare, cook, eat."

Made in the Future New manufacturing ecologies and the increased ability to make goods ourselves could lead to exceptional customization and new ideas, according to an new IDEO report.

Now that all the elements are in harmony, we can finally relax.

Just outside the lobby is a drive-through for Spiekermann’s Audi.

Blade Runner by LaCie, $299 Philippe Starck took a break from designing motorcycles and furniture to create this four-terabyte hard drive. Besides the cool geometry, the blades dissipate the heat built up by the spinning disks.

Drive (2011) For Ryan Gosling's nameless anti-hero in Drive, the River is less a site for mayhem, than a place for quiet contemplation in fast cars.

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.

NArchitekTURA designed the apartment so it could also serve as a showroom, hotel room, or art gallery.

A defining feature is the "green wall," a nearly 50-foot expanse of sliding panels that, when closed, presents a panoramic image of a natural landscape.

The apartment is outfitted with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems that can be controlled with a mobile application.

"Check out The Future Perfect's GALLERY installation at 55 Great Jones Street."

A bedroom by Los Angeles interior designer Oliver M. Furth, who will join us onstage at Dwell on Design to predict future iconic furnishings.

The panels slide from side to side, allowing the user to re-scale and reconfigure the space. Shifting the semi-transluscent panels also results in the creation of a number of "vivid, multi-dimensional collages," Haduch says.

Starbucks Drive-Thru (Chicago, Illinois) This demi-sized, 700-square-foot coffee shop in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood is one of a growing number of modular experiments from the big chain. This LEED-certified structure is hopefully a play towards better building practices as opposed to a means to plop a store on any available space.

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.”

After all the new bikes had found their owners we were off!