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Home Design Photos and Ideas

Another move that reduces the house's environmental impact is the inclusion of photovoltaic panels on the roof. The panels generate enough energy to offset 95% of the house’s consumption.
Another money-saving choice was changing the driveway from a stone paver driveway to poured concrete. The roof is designed to collect rainwater, which travels through a set of pipes for storage in a 39,000-gallon cistern behind the house.
According to the homeowners, one concession they made to save money was downgrading the exterior retaining wall from a gabion retaining wall to native limestone blocks.
The project was completed entirely remotely. Since then, the husband-and-wife team have moved back to Santiago, where they had met as young architects working for local firms.
In this Australian project, a resort-worthy swimming pool sits beside the industrial-chic kitchen and living area. It's a joy to swim in, of course, but the body of water also provides evaporative cooling for the courtyard.
The couple added the wainscot, installed by Seamus, and painted in Farrow & Ball Red Earth to continue the “color story” from the breakfast room. The white oak built-in has much needed storage behind the cane cabinet fronts and display. The Caitlin couch by Everygirl for Interior Define sits atop a vintage checkered rug with an Anthropologie coffee table and Hay Paper Shade overhead.
The couple added curved cabinetry and a window seat to form a breakfast nook, painted in Farrow & Ball Red Earth. The table is discontinued from Anthropologie, where Kara previously worked as a display coordinator, and the overhead light is the Lambert & Fils Waldorf Double.
An arched opening was added to connect the kitchen and breakfast nook, and gain sightlines to the yard. Seamus refinished the fireplace mantle and added square zellige Zia tile in ‘Nana’s Lipstick’ to the surround. Gubi Semi Pendants hang over the island, and the sink has a Devol Ionian Bridge Tap.
The wet bar was given a custom cherry top, and the couple added wall molding for texture.
Seamus rebuilt the front porch to be more historically accurate, and the couple painted everything in Pink Ground by Farrow & Ball, except the porch ceiling, which has Little Boy Blue by Sherwin Williams.
The redesign enlarged an existing arched opening between the dining room (with its vintage Saarinen table) and the new addition.
For a bathroom in the new addition, the architects utilized the former addition's rocky foundation, complemented by zellige tile.
Twenty minutes from Marfa, a couple bring a 1914 home back to basics by peeling away faux stone, preserving marbelized tile, and building an addition that’s boxy in the best way.
The original house was built in 1914, on a slightly raised portion of the property.
The four-bedroom home features a front elevation with offset windows of different sizes that create a dynamic facade. The windows emphasize the verticality of the home, and their size is based on the program and function of the space behind.
Thanks to the California weather, the couple can make use of the outdoor dining and living area for much of the year.
The elaborate pocket door was carved by David with a CNC machine.
David built a record player nook into the corner. "We keep our record collection in the garage on the property and every week swap out 20 records," he explains. "We were so close to getting rid of our collection, but are so happy we were able to squeeze them in."
David and Darian had to do a big cull of their belongings to make Airstream life work, but smart storage solutions mean they've adapted to small-space living well.
A kitchen shelf Nick picked up secondhand on Kleinanzeigen. It was very damaged when he acquired it, so he applied spackle to resurface it and painted it red.
Low-lying furniture and art makes the high-ceilinged living room appear even bigger. Most of the furnishings were sourced secondhand, though the hanging lamp is a DIY Nick made by fusing two paper shades together.
Nick lounging in the living room. The one-of-a-kind candleholder to his right is one of his favorite secondhand finds. "It has these three mirrors which reflect the light of the candle perfectly, and the wiggly shapes are just amazing," he says.
Nick photographed in his dining room.
“We had been searching for a pine with the appropriate shape for quite a long time,” says Wakebayashi of the garden’s signature planting. “Then, Mr. Nakamura strongly recommended this special pine tree to us.”
Although Wakebayashi is not a professional Noh actor, he performs in front of an audience once or twice a year. For these performances, his preparation goes beyond memorizing lyrics and choreography—he sometimes even visits temples and locations where the story is set. “I need to understand the contents of the Noh play, which is how the main character feels, and the background of the story including history,” says Wakebayashi.
The home’s Noh stage is constructed of hinoki cypress. On the back wall, Kagami-ita—which literally translates to “mirror board”—is a polished board on which the sacred pine tree is depicted. “It serves as an echo board for the sound on the stage, and is known as the large pine tree that first catches the eye upon entering the Noh theater,” says architect Takanori Maita.
Wood panelling brings a warmth to the concrete-and-white space.
The wallpaper was one of the first interior details, a limited edition print featuring trans icons and significant moments in queer history.
Concrete floors were polished a few extra times to reveal the pebbles and stones for a terrazzo-esque effect.
The sofa flips into a comfortable queen-sized bed. “We’d rather have the space be mostly available for hanging out, but able to convert when we need to," says David.
Natural light was extra important to Aaron, as this space functions as his art studio, too.
A pop of red distinguishes the front door, paired with vertical cedar siding with an ebony stain, and Richlite panels and detailing.
The build team added 25,000 pounds of concrete and lead to ensure ballast, or that the house would be level on the waves. “It’s a tiny home, so you have all the same things you would worry about in a tiny home, but with this added challenge of having to be as stable as possible,” says David.
David likes to cook and entertain so the architects designed a full-scale kitchen with Forbo Marmoleum flooring, white oak cabinets, ceramic tile backsplash, and Richlite counters.
Windowsills were extended to do double-duty, and also function as bookshelves.
Built to go off the grid, this remote beachside cottage can open up completely to the outdoors with its series of movable wall-sized glass panels and screens. Designed by Herbst Architects, the modest New Zealand bach comprises two rectangular pavilions built with mostly natural materials chosen for their durability, texture, and weathering characteristics.
For an escape from bustling San Francisco, architect Craig Steely and his wife Cathy have created a modernist getaway on a lava field next to a black sand beach on Hawaii’s Big Island. Fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the ocean, the steel-framed home is one of several homes that Steely built on the recently active lava field.
Designed for off-grid functionality out of necessity, the self-sufficient bach that Herbst Architects designed for their friend is a stellar getaway on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island. Clad in cedar, the modestly sized abode embraces outdoor living and views of the Pacific Ocean.
Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.
The floors are Doug fir, and the framing and rest of the wood inside is redwood. The french doors and lower window were made by Mike York at Ocean Sash & Door Company, while the upper windows were made by Jeff and Molly.
After a forest fire destroyed their cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Jeff Waldman and Molly Fiffer built a new retreat with salvaged, charred timber and a community of friends.
A Go-Box can be transported to different locations easily, making it an ideal alternative for "van life
Tile by Zia Tile runs along a wall of the upstairs bathroom. The cabinets are by Cabinets quick, and the floor tile is by Concrete Collaborative.
“I’m a huge fan of yellow,
Emily and Jason Potter of DEN Los Angeles furnished the living area with Paul Laszlo's cane bench for Glenn of California, a Frank Lloyd Wright marble-topped “Taliesin” coffee table for Heritage Henredon and an Alvar Aalto lounge chair for Artek.
Warwas offset the rear of the ADU to accommodate the power lines running behind the house, and he designed a window in the office/guest room upstairs that meets the roof in the same way that the window off the dining area/kitchen meets the ground.
Ben Warwas set a slider by Western Window Systems at a diagonal beneath the overhang created by the second floor.
The dining area pendant is a vintage Louis Poulsen piece, and the dining table is from HAY. The dining chairs are a mix of antique wood chairs, a Thonet, and an Eames DCM chair. The lounge chair is a mid-century Norwegian piece from Skarbos.
The new dining area takes shape via a pair of IKEA floating shelves installed below the glass block window, which Xu and Becker painted blue along with the other window sills. "Once the blue paint was on, it really made the frame glow with natural light,
Studio Becker Xu streamlined the kitchen by building all of the appliances into the millwork. The budget-friendly countertops are a Formica solid surface.
A blue checkered Moroccan rug amps up the visual interest in the space, along with a new yellow Togo couch and Herman Miller coffee table. Switching out the mullioned windows for new tilt-and-turn windows from Semko help the space feel larger and increase energy efficiency.
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">Leah designed a stone planter that works as an herb garden and vinyl storage, noting that </span><span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">"it's truly a piece that integrates the worlds of cooking and lounging."</span>
Fun fact: Inky, who is <span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">SVP of Strategy and Chief of Staff for the NBA, is a passionate home cook and attended culinary school in 2019 to refine her home cooking skills. </span>
A “weird two-story closet” around the staircase, says Butcher, became the powder room on the first floor and a reading nook on the stair landing. The couple’s twelve-year-old suggested the forest theme, achieved with wallpaper from Murals Your Way and a log sconce from Unique Lighting Co on Etsy.
The original fir floors were patched and refinished. Holly fell in love with an Italian marmoleum that Matthew installed in the kitchen. The fireplace artwork is from Holly's grandmother. Says Matthew: “It's a pastel drawing by Kay deGreef, an artist whose main gig was painting Hallmark cards.”
Matthew and Holly opened up the foyer and kept the exposed framing in place to speak to the house’s history. The figurine on the newel post is not original to the house, but a vintage replacement found online and rewired by Matthew.
Matthew and Holly worked with Best Practice Architecture on the remodel, removing the front addition from the 1950s and reinstating the historic bay window. The remaining addition had to be rebuilt and was clad in tongue-and-groove 3-inch vertical cedar "tight knot
Chester and Chloe opted for practical vinyl upholstery in the dining nook.
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