The dining room features 1970s leather-and-brass dining chairs and a table concocted from a brass-and-silver base and a custom lacquered top. The cheerful blue paint enlivening the doorway is from Emery & Cie.

In the dining room, a Smoke chair by Marten Baas for Moooi keeps company with a glass-and-ceramic vase by Hella Jongerius and a mirrored steel painting by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto.

"The cedar siding is simply stained with a black semi-transparent oil stain [from Cabot], which allows the color of the wood to still emerge through,” architect Robert Hutchison says. “We love how the black color makes the building recede into the background, and how it in turn allows the trees on the site to emerge as the highlight.”

In the hall, the designer allowed the original details to resonate. “The old building has a lot to tell us,” she says.

Homeowner Susanna prefers a motley set of dining chairs over a coordinated set; that way, guests can pick their favorite when they sit. Photo by: Petra Bindel

Konstantin Grcic’s Venus chairs for ClassiCon surround a table by Poliform in the formal dining room. Hill selected the Flos chandelier designed by Marcel Wanders for its "Old World reverence." The sleek fireplace mantel was designed by Hill and cobbled together onsite from three solid slabs of limestone.

In paring back the home's aesthetic, Chris kept the color palette as simple as possible. Limiting the surfaces to either painted white or stained black allows colorful art, objects, furniture, and people to really pop.

In the kitchen, the continuous kitchen worktop and table are made of marble from Caledonia Marble. The pink Tamatik dining chairs are by Connie Chisholm and are from the Canadian design shop Made. The Blinding Love pendant lights are by Periphere, which has shops in Montreal and Toronto. The iron rails were inspired both by screens the couple had seen on their travels in the Middle East and by the ornate wrought ironwork favored by their Portuguese neighbors. Barzel Ironworks fabricated the banister to Sawatzky’s design by slicing up iron pipe, welding it, and painting it.

Chair Necessities The couple’s four Chair One dining chairs by Konstantin Grcic for Magis are among their most prized possessions. They had been given their dining table as a wedding gift but couldn’t afford enough chairs to surround it, so they opted for a wooden bench on one side and the Grcic chairs on the other. Davor says he’s pleased they purchased the chairs early in the design process before the budget got really tight. magisdesign.com

Brothers Nima and Soheil relax in the family room on an Eames lounge chair and a custom sofa they designed. “Mid-century architecture draws the outdoor environment indoors,” says Soheil. “There’s a lot of natural light, a lot of ventilation.”

When the family wants to eat meals inside, they can sit around the dining table on Eames chairs.

Designer Christiane Hogner, Bruxelles

The dining room serves as the hub for all activity. Original Series 7 chairs by Arne Jacobsen complement a table Maynard designed and dubbed the “Zero Waste Table,” since it utilizes every inch of a large wood sheet. To the right, a sliding door opens to the garden.

While Brooklyn brownstones conjure up memories of their turn-of-the-century roots, they also remain the modern-day face of New York’s coolest boroughs. With brownstone living, however, comes responsibility—many of these classic beauties are in need of renovation and restoration. Here are 10 standout, renovated brownstones that retain their original charm with added contemporary cool.

50 years Gerrit Rietveld’s Steltman chair has recently been reissued by Rietveld Originals to mark its fiftieth anniversary. The chair, originally designed to seat engaged couples as they choose rings at the Steltman jewelry house in The Hague, was reproduced based on Rietveld’s drawings and one of the two original chairs, currently housed in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Photo courtesy of Rietveld Originals.

In the dining area a vintage table from a shop in Barcelona is surrounded by Giandomenico Belotti Spaghetti chairs. The space, which also includes the kitchen, occupies a 1970s addition.

A pair of matching Idea lights by Vesoi over a dining room table and chairs, both locally-made.

With the help of architect Bart Lens, Veerle Wenes and Bob Christiaens merged a 19th-century building with a 1970s one to create a combined home and art gallery in Antwerp. In the dining room downstairs, Wenes entertains family, friends, and gallery visitors. The yellow chair is by Jens Fager.

In the dining area, a one-of-a-kind table with a reclaimed Carrara marble top by NET—themultidisciplinary design firm of architect Alejandro Sticotti, with whom Nicolas works—is surrounded by prototypes of the company’s Board chair. The family dog, China, sits on a floor made of travertine tiles.

The family's activity centers around the open-plan dining room, which does triple-duty as a living room and kitchen. Susanna prefers a motley set of dining chairs over a coordinated set; that way guests can pick their favorite when they sit.

In the Norton family home in London’s Stoke Newington district, Jamie Norton and his sons, Miller, 3, and Ned, 7, enjoy a meal at a salvaged table and chairs found at a local vintage shop. The ceramics are by Richard Batterham.

All of the Jenn-Air appliances, including the washer and dryer, are electric, as the owners asked the city to cut the gas line to the house. The kitchen cabinetry is from IKEA and features custom, matte-gray doors and Silestone countertops. The floorboards are reclaimed maple from an old tire factory, sanded and stained gray.

Architect Abigail Turin added a dose of color to her black-and-white bedroom with a Rainbow chair by Patrick Norguet for Cappellini.

The dining room’s high drama is thanks to a Cellula chandelier by Nunzia Carbone and Tiziano Vudafieri, a sleek Colors table by B. Fattorini for MDF Italia, and a massive yellow painting on the wall by Polish artist Pitor Uklański.

Visitors pass by a sentry wall of lamps from Design House Stockholm on their way to the airy living-dining room with its 52 windows.

Douglas fir and Alaskan cedar richly line the interior walls, and the flooring is made of Vermont slate. In the kitchen and dining area, a group of Wishbone chairs by Hans Wegner for Carl Hansen & Søn surrounds a table by local furniture maker Larry Hepler.

The Tio Chair in black.

The ground-floor sauna, one of the home’s central gathering spots, is built from stained alder. The electric heater is from the Finnish company Iki.

Mechanical engineer Jan Moolsintong and industrial designer Peter Russell-Clarke get epic views of San Francisco from their 1,800-square-foot house overlooking the Mission District. On warm nights, they eat dinner perched on Eiffel side chairs by Charles and Ray Eames around a table from Room & Board. The distinctive facade has operable porthole windows and a slatted garage door custom-built by Raimundo Ferreira.

Spoleto ChairMays found her tubular Bauhaus chairs at Danish Modern L.A.; for a similar effect, try DWR’s Spoleto chairs, their bases also mimic those of the Panton chairs. $1,211

If you’re tired of your go-to beverage and missing your favorite craft cocktail bar, recreate the experience at home by dimming the lights or swapping in colored bulbs, rearranging some decor and furniture, and trying out one of the shelter-in-place cocktail recipes recommended by top mixologists.

In the dining area, a vintage table is surrounded by Eames DCM chairs topped with leather cushions custom-made by Peart. A PH5 pendant lamp by Poul Henningsen for Louis Poulsen hangs overhead.

Davor and August check out the yard from the living room. “The bifold Vistalite doors allow us to open the house up completely and enjoy the fresh, warm air,” Davor says.

The architect placed the windows at Sabrina’s eye level so that she’d be able to see her son, Rocco, playing in the yard outside. "You can feel the seasons changing here," says Chiavelli. "I grew up three miles from here, outside in nature. This is a house for experiencing life."

Piet Hein Eek's wooden chairs add a touch of color to the monochromatic Amsterdram apartment of Hunter Hindman and Shelby Carr.

In the dining room, which opens to the backyard terrace, original tilework on the floors and walls complement decidedly modern counterparts—an original 1938 Butterfly chair by Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, and a 1983 TMC floor lamp by Spanish designer Miguel Milá.