Fabian plays with Morten in the yard, which features a spacious lawn and a greenhouse.

The renovation revealed a 30-foot-deep well beneath the bedroom, which the team half-jokingly considered turning into a fish tank. Instead, they opted for a simple bedroom with plenty of built-in storage.

Shibata made the 10-person dining table using $130 sawhorse legs from Maruki Wood Products Company topped with a sheet of birch plywood. A hole in the sliding wall fits over the table, enabling it to be used in both the library and the meeting room. malki.jp A movable wall clad in wainscoting on one side slides along tracks in the dining-room ceiling, dividing the room into a meeting space and a library. The Shiro Simple Modern Pendant lights can be easily removed and reattached after moving the wall. vanilladesign.jp

To update the kitchen for this apartment in the Leather District, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop and contractor Michel Beaudry created a clean-lined space. The space is designed to accommodate the client's busy schedule, which affords him little time for cooking.

During the renovation, Grimley and Smith added built-in storage to keep clutter in check.

The backyard sports a sequence of raised flower and vegetable beds and two green roofs—one atop the workshop and other atop the back entrance.

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

An older building doesn't mean that it can't also be modern, particularly in the kitchen.

Home Renovation Tip: Decide on a Sensible Scope of Work

The couple’s white Bulthaup kitchen is set within a double-height volume hung with Tom Dixon Beat lights, arranged in a custom configuration by interior designer Maria Rosa Di Ioia. Overhead, Cubit shelving artfully displays books and objects, accessible by a glass-walled footbridge added during the renovation.

The renovation was designed to preserve and call attention to the angular pattern of the crisscrossing concrete ceiling beams. Photo by Jim Stephenson.

Architects who practice in dense cities know its almost impossible to add square footage to an apartment. Yet at a garden-level residence in Boston's historic Beacon Hill neighborhood, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop was able to unearth 70 square feet of living space through a little excavation.

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The historic apartment has been updated throughout with white paint and minimalist accents, adapting its rustic character to the 21st-century.

“The upper floor includes the entry, cloakroom, guest bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, and terrace,” Hammer says. “In contrast to the lower floor and its separated rooms, the living area is composed as an open space with no walls.” Nerd Chairs by David Geckeler for Muuto surround a handcrafted nutwood table in the dining room.

Abbes and Davison removed drywall to expose the brick on one wall in the living room. "As we began to expose that brick, we found the old metal framing that they used to use," Daivson says. "They used to stick chicken-mesh wire on it and put plaster on top. When we exposed the brick, we found this metal detail and decided to keep it." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

"In the kitchen, we changed the layout," Davison says. "It was a galley kitchen, extending lengthways into the room. We spun it back along the back wall. The tiles are Moroccan concrete tiles that came from a supplier here in Manhattan. The idea was to inject some color and playfulness into the space with the blue cabinetry." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

A geographic lime-green tile pattern was incorporated into the bathroom to complement the sink, which was found in an architectural salvage yard and retains its original color. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

“All interior walls were removed to create four individual rooms on the sixth floor,” Hammer says. The two children and the new baby share a bathroom. And in their bedrooms, storage continues to be key.

All of the artwork was created by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

The cantilevered shelving in the bedroom was fashioned from vintage metal panels that were purchased online, Davison says. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

Another view of the master bedroom shows more original artwork by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

Skylights draw sunshine into the apartment.

The apartment originally crammed four closed rooms and a kitchen and bathroom into 1,000 square feet. After the renovation, it had only one bedroom and a large, open kitchen.

A Coral pendant lamp by David Trubridge hangs in the dining area.

Felt-covered sliding doors made of acoustic substrate separate the children’s room and living area.

Fabian and Dorothee Heine’s renovation began and ended with a particular kitchen system. Almost a year before finding the flat they would call home, the Hamburg-based couple decided upon a matte black Vipp kitchen that Fabian had glimpsed in the window of the company’s Copenhagen showroom. The island serves as a generous workspace for Fabian to prepare dishes with her son Morten.

The office, which is also Lily’s room, features a Babyletto crib and a Smileywalls wall decal applied atop Normandy paint from Benjamin Moore.

In renovating the 90-square-foot kitchen of a Boston apartment, architect Chris Greenawalt drew upon both spatial and material solutions to create a pleasing and wheelchair-accessible space to accommodate all three of its tenants.

The same space before it was updated.

An office nook and library can participate in the open plan or disappear behind pocket doors.

In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

Alex Gil and Claudia DeSimio created a duplex in an apartment building where they’d been renting for years in Brooklyn, New York, and set to work gutting the interior and adding a new rooftop addition clad in panels of Cor-Ten steel.

No whiteware here. In this moody apartment in Berlin, multi-toned charcoal gray subway tiles make up the backsplash, which contrasts with the pop of rosy color on the kitchen cabinets.

Saya chairs by Arper surround an eleven-foot-long table of Dragisic's own design in the dining room.

Owner-architect Lyle Bradley moved the stairs in his home against a party wall, and a new skylight above the staircase now bathes both floors in natural light. In the living room, the stair's lower step reaches out to form an arm, while the ascending stairs create a natural incline for cushions.