materials
The poured concrete retaining walls between terraces are 4 to 4½ feet tall, and are engineered with proper reinforcements and drainage. To maximize floor space, the walls double as the backs to ipe wood benches, raised planters and a water feature. The walls are finished with a smooth stucco coat. Their pigment was color-matched to Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore, distinguishing them from the poured concrete flooring. “I wanted the walls to recede a bit since they were so tall, but still be an accent,” Mullins says. “I find that darker colors can accomplish that.”
The house has been given a raw, industrial edge with the use of robust materials such as reclaimed bricks and concrete. “We’ve used coarse materials that are usually seen on the exterior to demonstrate that textural layers are all that is necessary for crafting warm, inviting and generous spaces,” Carter says.
Instead of following the classic villa stud height, Hall played with the ceilings, creating a dramatic double-height kitchen and dining area on one side and a snug, sunken living room on the other, below the master bedroom. At ground level, the pavilion opens up completely to the yard and pool, through full-height sliding wood doors built by Nicks Timber Joinery. They sit beautifully with the raw concrete ceiling and neutral palette of gray on gray.
When it comes to patio flooring, the great outdoors can be unforgiving. This is another scenario where porcelain’s impermeability wins. When ceramic tile freezes, it absorbs moisture. This causes ceramic to expand and break. You could be looking at a flooring replacement much sooner than expected. If you live in an area that is prone to hard freezes, ceramic tile is out of the question for an outdoor space. If you live in a climate where freezes are occasional or uncommon, ceramic is risky at best. Carefully weigh your decision when deciding between porcelain or ceramic.
You’re installing tile in a room with high moisture content The best pick: Porcelain Remember, the TCNA defines porcelain as tile that absorbs less than 0.5 percent of moisture. Why doesn’t porcelain absorb much moisture? According to the TCNA, porcelain is naturally dense, which means it’s harder to penetrate. In other words, it’s nearly waterproof. This property makes porcelain a no-brainer for bathroom installations, as well as other areas of your home that are exposed to moisture.
The flooring is composed of rift-sawn and quartered white oak planks with a matte polyurethane finish. “The dull finish on the floor stands up to all of the snow we get here in Minnesota and is more of an old-school finish that the client wanted,” Simmons says. “The light floor is more contemporary than the dark floors you typically see in a Tudor, and it keeps the space cheerfully bright and open.”
Bench and chairs: Marcali Designs; chair fabric: Janet Yonaty; chair pillows: Upstairs at Pierre Lafond; side tables: Palecek; rug: Stark; coffee table: Reagan Hayes; table vase: Mira Mara; chain on table: The Future Perfect; leaf dish on table: Cabana Home; throw blanket: Anthropologie; sofa: Dmitriy & Co.; sofa fabric: Coraggio; fireplace candlesticks: Lawson-Fenning; window treatments: Coraggio fabric, Santa Cruz Designs
Sixteen-foot ceilings allow for dramatic views from this Aspen, Colorado, living room. The floor-to-ceiling fireplace facing is one-eighth-inch steel plate treated with a patina. Flooring: poured concrete; ceiling: clear vertical grain stained fir; sofas: Ray with contrast stitching, B&B Italia; coffee table: custom
To make the piece fit in the room, Griffin had the top removed to give it cleaner lines, then had her furniture refinisher give it a light sanding and several coats of midnight blue lacquer. She kept the original antique brass pulls, which looked just right. This photo also gives you a glimpse of the floors. Previously, they had an orange tone. Griffin had all the floors refinished with a midtone brown stain in a matte finish.
Wall tile: Mural collection, Heath Ceramics Why the design works: This space was originally a tight entryway coat closet. To make the most of the layout, the design team used a wall-hung toilet and vanity. A medicine cabinet with an internally lit mirror minimizes clutter. The Palm Springs desert sky inspired the bright blue tile color.
The floor is laminated glass with a frit. “A frit is a layer that is fused to the glass to diffuse the light, and it also provides traction,” DeForest explains. The ceiling above it is cedar. “We love the way wood ceilings add warmth, scale and texture to a space,” DeForest says. “In this case, it also helped emphasize the slope of the roof and add a natural material without competing with the art.”
The pros at Transom Design Build used a sandblasted manzanita branch to create a work of art in this living room. They anchored it to the wall with a decorative chain and used fishing wire to fasten the smaller branches. Placing it on a charcoal gray wall and illuminating it with track lights shows off the branch’s beautiful structure and casts interesting shadows.
The hallway also feels connected to the two-story space to the left, via the wood ceiling that continues down the wall. The walnut planks came from North Carolina and are 12 to 14 inches wide. At the right you can see the recessed baseboard detail, which is 12 inches high and continues throughout the house. The floor is a porcelain tile that looks like wood. The pivot door leads to the master suite.
“The craft room has one of our favorite Ikea hacks to date,” Ronderos says. All of the crafting supplies are concealed behind kitchen cabinets from Ikea, which are paired with a custom wenge wood recess with LED lighting that adds an interesting architectural detail where creations can be displayed. It’s a good example of how these designers play with positive and negative space.
The flooring on the main level is large-format porcelain Italian tile that resembles concrete. “We are using these all the time with our clients these days,” Ronderos says. “They are durable and can handle a lot of foot traffic, they don’t absorb stains, they are easy to clean and they will last a long time.”
“At first the client was apprehensive about drapes, so we found a way to keep them clean-lined,” Ronderos says. “Now they are one of her favorite things in the house.” The pinch pleats are tucked up above the drop ceiling to keep a contemporary, linear look. The drapes are motorized and, when open, disappear behind recesses in the walls.
One of the homeowners loves to add rustic touches and fell hard for this coffee table with the live-edge wood slice detail. The designers customized the table to glam it up, adding a mirror on the bottom and interesting objects inside its acrylic box. A bamboo silk rug adds a soft, elegant layer on the floor and helps define the seating area within the large room.
The floors on the lower level, with the exception of the entryway, are in lightly bleached natural larch wood. The whitening treatment was carried out in order to remove the reddish tinge that this wood accumulates over time.
Large-format sliding doors open onto terraces that bookend the living and dining space. Powder-coated metal planters filled with bamboo ensure privacy on the roof terrace, while artificial wood decking that won’t rot covers the floor. Sliding doors: Schuco; decking: Millboard
The south-facing windows take in the view of the mountains and harness the sun. Price found many ways to make the home energy-efficient. The windows are high-performance, low-E, double-paned glass. The overhang allows the sun to come in and warm the floors, which serve as a thermal mass and also have radiant heat as backup. The design also includes staggered-stud, 8-inch-thick walls. This type of construction eliminates thermal breaks in the walls. There’s also extra insulation around the roof, foundation and slab.
Most of the public areas are on the main level. Here, a shou-sugi-ban accent wall creates a beautiful contrast with the ceiling and connects the interior and exterior.
The siding gets its rugged look from a Japanese charring process called shou-sugi-ban. At night and on the weekends, Wim charred and then sealed every board with natural oil himself. Having never tried it before, there was trial and error involved, but once he got the hang of it, he used his experience in production design and manufacturing to streamline and speed up the process. “It’s amazing — this siding will last from 30 to 50 years, repels insects, never needs restaining and requires little to no maintenance,” Price says. “The charring adds an extra level of protection.” A hot-rolled-steel wainscot around the bottom of the house adds contrast and a weathered look.
The strong grid pattern of the brick floor adds more texture to the otherwise high-gloss scene. Its color is exceptional. Awes says the traditional ironspot brick contains iron that leaks to the surface when fired, giving it “an iridescence and reflective surface,” Awes says. Manganese is the darkest version of that: “It is purply blue-black, gorgeous.” Awes passed over the floor-tile version and opted for the face brick, which has a narrower dimension. “It gives a bit of a surprise to the room and a significant statement to the kitchen,” he says. “It’s one of the first things you experience and notice when walking in.” Ironspot brick in Manganese: Endicott
The dining table incorporates a light installation by artists Rob and Nick Carter. “The owner came across them on [TV program] The Apprentice,” Merola says. “They were working with a contestant. He loved their work and got in touch, asking them to design something. At first they thought he meant an artwork for the walls, but no, it was a table!” The lights go through different color themes, pre-programmed by the artists. “I had to amalgamate it with the table structure, which we had made from steel,” Merola says. “The cabling runs out through the legs, and it had to be positioned just under the sculptural pendant light.”
Wall mirrors aren’t the only light-infusing accessory you can introduce in a shady spot — look for other shiny metal or glass pieces. These silver tables bring a hint of boudoir glam to this living room, particularly with the sparkling accents and super-soft upholstery.
For tile in high-traffic areas, Stewart recommends porcelain because of its strength and the way the color runs all the way through. If the tile chips, you’ll notice it less.
This beautiful solid-wood floor is made from oak bleached with lye and finished with a soap treatment. This is a technique popular in Scandinavia that lightens wood for a sophisticated, paler look. Here it adds to the light, airy feel in this modern dining room. Look for products in specialist flooring stores, or buy pre-treated boards.
One of the major splurges was the concrete floor throughout. It was polished with a special finish and ties in beautifully with the stone accent walls and wood ceilings. Wood acoustic panels on the ceilings lend natural warmth to the living, dining and kitchen areas.
This pale, calming kitchen uses sustainably sourced birch plywood for the kitchen units and worktops — which are topped with brushed stainless steel — and Douglas fir for the shelves and floor. Birch is a high-quality ply with a lovely grain and light color. The door and drawer fronts shown here have been treated with lye to lighten them for a soft, chalky look, but the end grain and recessed handles are simply sealed with an eco-friendly water-based matte lacquer to show the interesting patterns of the ply. “Typically, we work with oak frames and doors,” and birch ply for the cabinet boxes, says U.K. kitchen designer and remodeler Sam Shaw of Sustainable Kitchens. Here, however, the birch plywood takes center stage. “It’s the best-quality plywood you can get for internal joinery because it’s very stable.”
Tile: Ann Sacks
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