The space is also adorned with timber cladding, as seen on the entry door.

Timber battens were used on north-facing windows to prevent excessive heat in the summer. The exterior is clad in Scyon’s Linea weatherboard and covered in Dylux’s Western Myall paint. Beneath the upper floor, a little nook makes for the perfect covered carport and storage spot for surfboards.

“We wanted the wood to appear as natural as possible, so leaving the larch untreated was the first choice,” Bas explained. But the shape of the house would make the wood turn gray unevenly, so they blackened the larch. “The clients were excited with the dark color as it helps the house blend into the trees. They didn’t want the anything excessive or showy.” But blackened timber comes with its own challenges. Since it absorbs more heat, a larger air cavity was built behind the wood to keep it cool.

The kitchen table.

The courtyard acts like an outdoor living room, where the Arnolds’ daughter, Josie, plays freely, safe from nearby traffic. The family dines here most of the year at the custom-designed wood-and-steel table. The picnic table set reappropriates the century-old eucalyptus tree that once grew on the site.

The home, clad in natural Australian timber, enjoys a sense of lightness thanks to slender columns that let it float over the dunes. The driveway and entry, at the rear of the building, have an understated design to build to the interior's magnificent ocean views. Firm director Phil Snowdon explains, “By creating an architectural form that draws your eye and leads you up the steep driveway, we could engage new visitors in a welcoming process that first reveals the object and then slowly reveals the main event, being the view."

The owners furnished the living room with a mixture of new and old pieces, including a Hans Wegner lounger and Tuckbox coffee table. A timber-lined hallway leads out from it to the newer parts of the home. Sections of steel-framed double glazing separate and accentuate each “house” while letting in glimpses of sky.

Floor Play Subverting the traditional, conservatively cozy British barn conversion, Carl Turner created a getaway in rural Norfolk for himself and his friends to visit, repose, and consider the beauty of agrarian minimalism. In the converted barn, a modern fireplace with a sleek, shiny chimney contrasts with the wide, reclaimed wood floorboards and textured exposed brick wall.

A Bay Area landscape designer works her yard like a jigsaw puzzle, packing a bevy of distinctive destinations into a steep and diminutive plot. Photo by: Morgan Rachel Levy Read the entire article here.

The table’s base, which itself is an additional storage container, rolls easily into place to support the surface.

The slightly below-ground kitchen sits inside a boxy extension, clad in recycled timber and stained kettle black. A wildflower garden grows on its pitched roof.

“Timber” side table.

Located just off the kitchen, this room was originally designed for dining—the adjustable Ligne Roset Crescendo coffee table can be raised to 28.75 inches—but most days Bill and Abbie prefer to eat outside or at their casual Caesarstone-topped kitchen island. Today the space serves as a sunny reading spot and guest room, with a convertible futon (from Ligne Roset, since discontinued) and a set of leather-and-steel Paulistano armchairs from Design Within Reach.

The original timber rafters were retained and repainted to give the home a unique fusion of old and new.

The Pixo Desk Lamp is a consistent Dwell Store best seller. Designed by Pablo and Fernando Pardo with sustainability in mind, the lamp was created with a small footprint and a compact, energy-saving LED light. The ultra-efficient lamp features a swiveling light shade that makes it easy to focus and redirect light as needed. The Pixo Desk Lamp is currently on sale for 15% off at the Dwell Store until 10/23/2014.

The ground floor’s adjoining staircase, as well as the kitchen cabinets and tables, can be adjusted depending the homeowner's preferences. “The design of the house is an attempt to respond to [French novelist] Georges Perec’s question, ‘We should learn to live more on staircases. But how?’” Simpson says.

Elsewhere, the blocks accommodate other uses, like support for a built-in table and benches in the kitchen and a rooftop observatory (next slide) for watching the sun set over the Ilaló volcano.

If their everyday mantra sounds something like "reduce, reuse, recycle," these eco-conscious gifts won’t weigh on their conscience.

Maintenance problems can be extremely expensive to repair.

Gaffney and Kiku take in the air from the large sliding door bought from Timber Tech Scotland.

A black side table rests outside the bedroom hallway.

While the idea of 42 stories of wooden floors stacked on top of each other may seem shaky, the SOM Timber Tower Research project showed that such a sustainable superstructure is in fact possible. The concept calls for a concrete jointed timber frame to keep the structure anchored. More research, as well as building codes changes, would need to occur before anybody breaks ground. As cities look for sustainable construction to house growing populations, architects are starting to turn to wood as a more responsible solution.

Operable timber shutters and screens offer protection from extreme weather. Zoning the house into three distinct masses creates a partly sheltered courtyard to make this year-round blending of the indoors and outdoors possible.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”

In the living room, guests gather on a matching ebony sofa and daybed from Hudson and a pair of Jorge Zalszupin lounge chairs. An Yves Klein coffee table—filled with the artist’s signature International Klein Blue pigment— provides a vivid burst amid otherwise organic tones. The walnut-and-bronze cabinetry is a custom design.

A New York City apartment with walnut upper kitchen cabinets has a stainless-steel backsplash that ties into the finish of the fridge and the lower cabinets. The walnut dining room table does quadruple duty as a work station and storage unit, and an eating and entertaining area.

In the kitchen area and throughout the home, Mads Odgård, shown here, and Mette Lyng Hansen mixed Odgård’s pieces, such as the Odgård kettle for Raadvad and custom table, with Ikea basics and the Workshop pendant lamp by Louis Poulsen.

The dining room leads onto a terrace with a built-in concrete table and barbecue that are original to Raman and Schaffrath’s design. A pair of Hardoy butterfly chairs from Knoll are positioned by the pond.

A custom table surrounded by NET’s Museo chairs and poplar stools provides a space for the Sarmiento Tovo boys, Manuel, 5, and Julián, 3, to play with the toys their mother makes.

On his patio are a table and chairs from the 1968 Ozoo collection by Marc Berthier for Roche Bobois.

You'd never designed for special needs children before the Bancroft residence, how did you interpret the clients' needs? Jack Hawkins, architect: I would like to say I did tons of research, but I didn't. I went with the parents' lead. I took most of my design cues from them. They're the immediate caregivers, they know their children and about autism. They did all the research and told me what was important.

“There are a lot of well-loved, well-used pieces that were destined for this house,” Andrea says of the couple’s furniture collection. They placed a solid alder Homestead table from Whittier Wood Furniture in the office, which also overlooks the pond.

Using prefabricated elements, Bas van Bolderen Architectuur and Studio Puisto Architects were able to complete the dwelling in just eight months so the couple’s lives could return to normal. Wall elements were constructed in Germany, then transported to the Netherlands, where the house was erected in just one week.

Jasper and Maeve take five. One of their requests was for their dad to create a secret door to connect their bedrooms together.

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

Often, the text that accompanies the images will provide information that is otherwise unable to be communicated through a photo—the thickness of a mattress, the way a fabric shimmers in sunlight, even suggestions on how to pair the item with other pieces.