The table is situated in front of the house’s rear wall of skyscraper glass. Laminate kitchen cabinets by Ikea are framed in wraparound bluestone; the 48-inch commercial range is by FiveStar.

A massive pine beam defines the master bathroom.

A view of the kitchen's back wall shows the bright marriage of the yellow Fireclay tile backsplash with incoming light from the adjacent sliding door and the row of windows just above the hanging Boca Raton blue cabinets. Basked in light, the new kitchen displays an organized and cheerful aesthetic.

Bedroom

Master bathroom

De Jong & Co. designed the great room, as well as the dining chairs and table. The sofa, chairs, day bed, and coffee table in the living space are by Lawson-Fenning.

“At first we thought we might not need that much space, but then we started thinking long term. We look at this house as the home of our lifetime.” —Guido Chiavelli

“They wanted to keep the house to one level so that they could retire there without worrying about stairs and access,” Hutchison says. The home features two bedrooms, and the second one is available to guests and the homeowners’ college-age son.

Angled beams are a fixture of the structure, both inside and out. The beams “are an expression of the design, so they’re reinforcing view lines,” Winkelman says, “but they’re also weaving together the different axes of the site."

Painted beams serve to separate interior spaces.

Exposed beams continue into the kitchen ceiling, where minimal details and contrasting dark shades emphasize the natural materials. The window frames are positioned as “fins” to draw in just enough southern-facing light to keep the room comfortable.

Entrance to the Post Family workspace, the design collective's home on Hubbard street in the West Town neighborhood.

The Post Family has engaged in a variety of design and printing projects, and will be curating a series of events at the Comfort Station space in Logan Square this March.

The Post Family is a seven-member design collective that built its own gallery, letterpress, and screenprinting studio.

Consciously minimal.

Clean lines.

White brick exterior of Goddard and Mandolene’s home post renovation.

The living and kitchen areas were reconfigured to seamlessly join a terrace surfaced with artificial turf and Nature Teka decking by Disegna. The beam was coated in a shade of turquoise paint that matches the Acapulco chairs.

Rustic and refined.

Architect Bill Ryall installed vertical circulation elements, opened an unobstructed 47-foot-long view from front to back, and kept the ceiling beams exposed to create a loft-like environment.

The sculpture on the wall is by artist Peter Dudek, a friend of the family, and the pendants are by Glashütte Limburg. Baumann made a point to integrate industrial materials throughout, exposing steel beams and setting the floor in concrete.

The exposed ceiling beams and inserted steel framing system are visible in the lower level, where Lange and Dixon relax with their son Paul.

Open floor plan, breeze from kitchen, dining and living room areas.

Living room, open spaces.

Work It “We wanted to open up the back of the house, but there’s nothing to look at,” says Dana. “So we decided to put something in our yard as a focal point, to create our own view.” The architects came up with a glass-walled studio, which Dana uses as her home office. The architects mounted a steel I-beam that spans the yard, with holes drilled at eight-inch intervals for maximum flexibility of use. Right now it’s used for Ikea play equipment, but later they plan to hang a hammock and a movie screen. ikea.com

When renovating a house in McAllen, Texas, for his brother-in-law’s family, architect Luis López designed an overhang with concrete beams that protects the front entrance from the area’s frequent rain. A large front window was inserted to provide views through the house to the backyard.

The custom zinc cabinets and quartzite countertops of Mark Berryman’s Tribeca apartment reflect the sun as it sets over Manhattan. Workstead designer Robert Highsmith kept the apartment’s original fir beams and painted its existing pipes Onyx by Benjamin Moore. The counter stools are by Sawkille, and the floors are white oak from LV Wood. The range is by Viking.

Husband-and-wife founders of Calico Wallpaper Rachel and Nick Cope show how easy it can be to put a personal, design-led touch on loft living—even when it’s a rental. When the Copes rented a Red Hook loft in an industrial 1860s warehouse, the couple turned their rental into a testing ground for their marbleized wallpaper business and installed wallpaper in each of their rooms. The custom pieces take inspiration from the loft’s immediate surroundings and characteristics—from the silver-and-gold marbled mural that complements the loft’s exposed structural beams to a color-gradient wallpaper in the primary bedroom that takes cues from the sunset seen from Red Hook.

Skylights provide crucial natural light in the dining area and bedroom.

A steel I-beam was exposed during the renovation, and McManus and Drew opted to leave it that way, as it complemented the radiators and pipes that remain in their raw state elsewhere in the apartment. The general contractor, Eze Bongo, constructed the bamboo plywood desk.

At night, Goldfarb and Landers have often held philanthropic events in the central courtyard. The pool and jacuzzi are not original.

Welcome to Oyster Shores - a contemporary style barn house with iconic barn exteriors.

The defining gesture of a house on the Big Island of Hawaii by architect Craig Steely is a 139-foot-long, four-foot-tall concrete beam spanning the roof.

"We didn't want to diminish the openness and height and feeling of a great expanse of space," said the owner of this resurrected 19th-century barn house in Pine Plains, New York. Fortunately, the barn frame's horizontal beams perform a domestic function by creating the illusion of a lower ceiling. An abundance of furnishings in rich materials fills out the space. Photo by Raimund Koch.

At a renovated farmhouse on a 19th-century homestead, a gas fireplace fronted in weathered steel warms up the lofty master bedroom, whose spare decor is framed with beams discovered in a Pennsylvania barn. The Tizio desk lamp is by Artemide.