Inspiration for a contemporary living room remodel in San Francisco

Living room - huge modern open concept living room idea in DC Metro

Indoor-outdoor Living: dining area opens out to the sunlit patio, pendants by Poulsen. building Lab is a design build firm specialized in modern architecture.

Dining room - transitional dining room idea in Philadelphia

Kristin Zwiers Photography
Kitchen - traditional u-shaped kitchen idea in Seattle with shaker cabinets, white cabinets, granite countertops, red backsplash and stainless steel appliances

Hallway - coastal hallway idea

Open-concept kitchen with oversized island by our Design-Build Contractor for this San Mateo Addition & Full Home Remodel.
Example of a transitional l-shaped light wood floor and beige floor kitchen design in San Francisco with an undermount sink, shaker cabinets, white cabinets, gray backsplash, stainless steel appliances, an island and white countertops

Family room - mediterranean open concept family room idea in Miami with a concealed tv

This case study features a kitchen design and remodel in Elmhurst, Illinois. Here we showcase the details of the renovation, to give clients an in depth look at our design and remodel process.

This stunning luxury kitchen by Crespo Design Group blends timeless elegance with modern functionality, creating the perfect gathering space for family and entertaining. Crisp custom white cabinetry is paired with a dramatic navy blue island, while expansive marble countertops and a full-height marble backsplash add sophistication and natural beauty. Oversized designer pendant lights in brass and matte black create a striking focal point above the spacious island, which offers generous seating for casual dining and conversation. Thoughtfully curated finishes, including warm wood flooring, custom upholstered counter stools, and polished brass hardware, bring warmth and texture to the clean architectural lines. Professional-grade appliances, abundant storage, and a custom range hood combine luxury with everyday practicality, making this bespoke kitchen as functional as it is beautiful. Designed to flow seamlessly into the adjacent dining and living spaces, this open-concept kitchen reflects Crespo Design Group's signature approach to creating timeless interiors tailored to each client's lifestyle. As a premier luxury interior design firm in Tampa, Florida, Crespo Design Group specializes in designing custom kitchens, luxury residences, and high-end interiors throughout Florida, the Bahamas, and across the United States.

Picture this: a large-scale renovation and addition, a dream team collaboration with Krieger Klatt Architects, Mosher Dolan, and Whitmer Design, and clients who wanted it all. Timeless? Yes. Eclectic? Absolutely. Funky yet grounded in tradition? You bet. Our clients desired a space that was both enduringly classic and delightfully unique—and we delivered. Our clients craved a space that was functional for a bustling family life (hello, kids and constant entertaining!) but also a showstopper. The goal? To create a timeless kitchen and pantry that felt like an extension of the home's traditional bones while making a strong statement. Challenge accepted.

Inspiration for a cottage living room remodel in Boston

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

The site for this waterfront residence is located on the Great Neck Peninsula, facing west to views of NYC and the borough bridges. When purchased, there existed a 50-year-old house and pool structurally condemned which required immediate removal. Once the site was cleared, a year was devoted to stabilizing the seawall and hill to accommodate the newly proposed home. The lot size, shape and relationship to an easement access road, overlaid with strict zoning regulations was a key factor in the organization of the client’s program elements. The arc contour of the easement road and required setback informed the front facade shape, which was designed as a privacy screen, as adjacent homes are in close proximity. Due to strict height requirements the house from the street appears to be one story and then steps down the hill allowing for three fully occupiable floors. The local jurisdiction also granted special approval accepting the design of the garage, within the front set back, as its roof is level with the roadbed and fully landscaped. A path accesses a hidden door to the bedroom level of the house. The garage is accessed through a semicircular driveway that leads to a depressed entry courtyard, offering privacy to the main entrance. The configuration of the home is a U-shape surrounding a rear courtyard. This shape, along with suspended pods assures water views to all occupants while not compromising privacy from the adjacent homes. The house is constructed on a steel frame, clad with fiber cement, resin panels and an aluminum curtain wall system. All roofs are accessible as either decks or landscaped garden areas. The lower level accesses decks, an outdoor kitchen, and pool area which are perched on the edge of the upper retaining wall.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

This is a quintessentially urban prewar-into-modern hybrid: a broad, laterally organized reception room whose principal architectural gesture is the corner glazing that dissolves two walls into a panoramic register of treetops and distant skyline. The plan reads as a series of soft, overlapping conversational precincts rather than a single axial arrangement — a pair of swivel-capable lounge chairs anchoring the window wall, a facing pair of high-backed tub chairs, and a deep tuxedo-profile sofa closing the composition toward the viewer — all orbiting an organically contoured cocktail table that performs as the room's centrifugal keystone. The ceiling is treated with a recessed reveal and shallow soffit that traces the perimeter, a device that both conceals drapery hardware and lifts the plane visually, granting the low-slung modern floor plate an unexpected sense of loft. A blade wall carrying a single framed canvas performs critical spatial work, terminating the living volume while permitting an enfilade sightline through to a secondary dining zone beyond, where a glazed wall of ivy-clad courtyard reads as a green tapestry. The geometry throughout is deliberately curvilinear — barrel-backed seating, amoeboid tabletops, splayed tapered legs — set against the orthogonal discipline of window mullions, drapery pleats, and rectilinear millwork, producing a productive tension between architectural rigor and furnishings that behave sculpturally. **II. Materiality, Color & Texture** The palette is a study in tonal restraint calibrated for maximum textural incident. Walls are finished in a matte, faintly striated plaster or grasscloth with a warm ecru undertone that absorbs rather than reflects light, establishing a neutral field against which every surface differential registers. Seating is upholstered in a lustrous chenille or crushed velvet of pale greige, whose short pile catches raking daylight and reads almost pearlescent, while the foreground sofa introduces a coarser boucle in an oatmeal register and the opposing sofa shifts decisively into a saturated tobacco-and-umber channel-tufted chenille, its French-polished rosewood or macassar ebony frame supplying the room's darkest, most reflective note. Stone is deployed with connoisseurial precision: the cocktail tables are honed alabaster or backlit-quality onyx, their translucent creamy strata and honey veining offering a warm mineral counterpoint to the cool, ink-washed abstraction of the hand-knotted area rug, which functions as a painterly ground — a gestural silver-and-charcoal wash pooling beneath the furniture. Bronze, patinated brass, and stainless accents appear in table bases, the vessel-form vase, and the sconce, providing metallic punctuation without gleam. Drapery in a heavy sand-toned linen, edged in a beaded or embroidered tape, softens the glazing perimeter and reinforces the room's tactile vocabulary of nap, weave, slub, and polish. **III. Lighting, Atmosphere & Style Profile** Natural light is the dominant luminous strategy: the corner glazing admits a soft, diffuse northern wash under overcast conditions, which the designer has intelligently accepted rather than resisted — the flat, shadowless quality flatters the velvet piles and plaster walls, and the drapery is stacked to admit maximum daylight while modulating glare at the jambs. Artificial sources are almost entirely concealed or decorative: a slim architectural sconce on the blade wall, a sculptural biomorphic table lamp in white lacquer or ceramic in the dining zone, and an extraordinary petal-form pendant in patinated metal that reads as an art object first and a fixture second. The resulting atmosphere is hushed, cerebral, and quietly patrician — a room of low chroma and high material intelligence, where drama is supplied by silhouette and surface rather than by color or ornament. Stylistically, the project synthesizes into what might best be termed **Modernist Salon** or **Warm Continental Minimalism**: the DNA of mid-century French decorative arts — Royère, Frank, Adnet — filtered through a contemporary sensibility of tonal layering and soft geometry, with an Art Deco undertow in the ebonized woods and channel tufting. It is a scheme of curatorial discipline: nothing is decorative for its own sake, the view is treated as the primary artwork, and every material is selected for how it behaves in light.

Duplex Y is located in a multi apartment building, typical to the Carmel mountain neighborhoods. The building has several entrances due to the slope it sits on. Duplex Y has its own separate entrance and a beautiful view towards Haifa bay and the Golan Heights that can be seen on a clear weather day. The client - a computer high-tech couple, with their two small daughters asked us for a simple and functional design that could remind them of their frequent visits to central and northern Europe. Their request has been accepted. Our planning approach was simple indeed, maybe even simple in a radical way: We followed the principle of clean and ultra minimal spaces, that serve their direct mission only. Complicated geometry of the rooms has been simplified by implementing built-in wood furniture into numerous niches. The most 'complicated' room (due to its broken geometry, narrow proportions and sloped ceiling) has been turned into a kid's room shaped as a clean 'wood box' for fun, games and 'edutainment'. The storage room has been refurbished to maximize it's purpose by creating enough space to store 90% of the entire family's demand. We've tried to avoid unnecessary decoration. 97% of the design has its functional use in addition to its atmospheric qualities. Several elements like the structural cylindrical column were exposed to show their original material - concrete. Photos: Julia Berezina

Enter a kitchen reborn with a perfect blend of contemporary style and timeless charm. Red oak cabinets bring warmth and character, while sleek black custom cabinetry adds a touch of modern sophistication. The kitchen island, featuring open storage and luxurious soapstone countertops, is a focal point for both function and style. Glass panel doors introduce a modern touch, allowing you to display your kitchen essentials with elegance. This makeover creates a harmonious space that is both inviting and impeccably designed.